"Well—now listen to me, ma mère. I am hoping I shall be able to square things up, and we'll make a fresh start, but with this difference: that I take over the Château as well as the farm and run it on my own. You have tried to do it and have failed. Now I'll have a try and hope I may succeed. I have changed in my views somewhat—lately. I'm tired of a roving life and I mean to settle down. If I go away at all, it will be for a couple of months in the winter. I want to relieve you of the whole care and responsibility of this place. If buy it back, or get it back from your little notary, it must be for myself, but with the understanding that, for as long as you live, you can consider it as your home. I will pay for all repairs, all wages; I will run the house on my own lines, and I see that I shall have to spend a good sum on outside decoration as well as the inside. I shall welcome you every summer as my guest—in fact, at any time of the year you like to come; but as far as money goes, you will have your own marriage settlement, which has not been touched by this scoundrel, and I think I shall be able to afford you from the estate an extra two hundred a year. Will this suit you? I think you will enjoy the freedom of all care and anxiety. And you ought to be able to live comfortably on your income in your Orleans flat." The Countess listened to her stepson rather more quietly than he had expected; she appeared to be weighing it in her mind, for she was absolutely silent for a few minutes. Then she said: "And how will you, a man, be able to run this big house satisfactorily? I little thought that, after promising me I could have this for my life, you would now be turning me out." "No, ma mère, Monsieur Bouverie has turned you out. You have sold the Château to him. Your possession comes to an end. If I buy it back, I buy it back for myself. But you can still look upon it as your home. Your rooms will be always ready for you. Everything in them that you have always had." "Beggars can't be choosers," said the Countess bitterly; "I must agree, of course. How can I do otherwise?" Then she changed her tone, and spoke with flashing eyes. "It's a pity that you try to deceive yourself and me by saying you have changed your views, and after giving me to understand all these years that you had no affection for the place, now intend to settle down here. There is one detail you have omitted to mention in your change of plans, and this is your new-found child. He is the cause of all this change of views. You would not buy back the Château for your father's wife, it is for your boy. May I ask who his mother was? Why have you kept this marriage so dark? It is really he who is to supplant me, and before I leave the home in which I have been mistress for so many years, I would like to make sure that this child is all that your father would desire for a successor. I expect, as my right, that you give me all details of this marriage."