"Love?" commented de Maurel, with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "I am not like to listen to protestations of love. But what use is there to argue the matter at such length, Uncle Gaston?" he added, with obvious exasperation. "Have I not read you the Minister's letter and told you that my mind was made up? How could I act otherwise when--as the Minister tells me--the Emperor himself, ere he left for Prussia, desired me to try and make friends with the de Coursons?" "Friends!" ejaculated the invalid, and a sardonic grin almost distorted for the moment his thin, pale face. "Friends!" Then he continued more calmly: "There is no friendship possible, my lad, between us and the de Coursons. I know that I may as well be talking to that bedstead over there as to you. You say your mind is made up, and you have all your father's obstinacy and more. You will go to Courson, in spite of what I say. You'll go and you'll weep bitter tears of repentance for the rest of your life; of that I am as convinced as that I have one foot in the grave and am dragging the other one in as fast as may be. I am sick and weak; some will tell you that old Gaston de Maurel is already in his dotage; but you are the one being in the world whom I care for now, and I am not going to let my weakness get the better of me, and allow you to run your stupid head against a stone wall which will bruise, if it will not crush you, without raising my feeble voice in protest." "You but waste your precious breath, Uncle Gaston," rejoined de Maurel more gently. "I am nothing if not a soldier, and I'd as soon think of cutting off my right hand as to ignore my Emperor's wishes. When he pinned the Grand-Eagle of the Legion of Honour upon my breast, he gave me the highest proof possible of his belief and trust in me. I cannot fight for him for the present, with this accursed maimed leg of mine; but I should be a coward and a cur were I to disobey his responsible Minister in so small a matter. Be assured, Uncle Gaston, that no harm will come to me. No harm can come to any man through friendship with his mother, even if she be a de Courson."