A ray of sunlight came streaming through a narrow slit in the blinds. All was quiet in the little street, and there was no noise in the house--nothing to betray the necessary but exasperating performance of matutinal household duties. This silence surprised the young man. He looked at his watch to see how long he had slept, and once more he experienced that feeling, of which he never tired--that of being beloved by his sister with an idolatrous intensity extending to even the smallest details of life. At the same time recollections of the preceding evening came back to his mind. A score of faces rose up before him, all gradually melting away into the delicate features, mobile lips, and blue eyes of Madame Moraines. He saw her even more distinctly than he had done a moment after leaving her, but neither the clearness of the vision nor the infinite delight it afforded him to dwell upon it led him to suspect the feelings that were awakening within him. It was an artistic impression, nothing more--an embodiment, as it were, of all the most beautiful ideals he had ever read into the lines of romancists and poets. Idly reclining on his pillow, he enjoyed thinking of her in the same way as he enjoyed looking round his old, familiar room, with its air of peace and quiet. His gaze dwelt lovingly upon all the objects visible in the subdued light--upon his table, put in order by Emilie's hands, upon his engravings set off by the dark tone of the red cloth, upon the bindings of his favourite books, upon the marble chimney-piece with its row of photographs in leather frames. His mother's portrait was among them--the poor mother who had died before seeing the realisation of her most ardent hopes, she once so proud of the few scattered fragments she had occasionally come across in tidying her son's room! His father's likeness was there too, with its emaciated, drink-sodden features. Often did René think that the want of will power, of which he was dimly conscious, had been transmitted to him by his unhappy parent. But that morning he was not in the humour to reflect upon the dark side of life, and it was with childish glee that he gave two or three smart raps on the bedside. This was his manner of summoning Françoise in the morning to pull up the blinds and open the shutters. Instead of the servant it was Emilie that entered, and as soon as the sunlight was let into the room it was on his sister's face with its loving smile that the young man gazed--a face now beaming with hopeful curiosity. 'A triumph!' he cried, in reply to Emilie's mute interrogation.