Marcel walked quickly into an adjoining cabinet, threw himself into a chair and waited. Monsieur Antoine entered Madame Thierry's salon by the other door. He was less timid when he did not feel Marcel's searching eye fixed upon him. "Your servant, Madame André," he said on entering. "Are you alone?" Madame Thierry rose, answered affirmatively, and courteously waved him to a chair. Her face, too, was greatly changed. She had passed several nights by her son's bedside, and, when he insisted upon getting up and going away despite her entreaties, she realized that the momentous crisis of the drama of his life was at hand. "Your son is sick?" Monsieur Antoine began. "Yes, monsieur." "Seriously?" "God grant that he is not!" "Does he keep his bed?" "He got up a short time ago." "Can I see him?" "He has gone out, monsieur." "Then he isn't so very sick?" "He was very sick until last night, when he seemed a little better." "What was the matter with him?" "Fever and delirium." "Sunstroke?" "No, monsieur." "Unhappiness, perhaps?" "Yes, monsieur, great unhappiness." "Because he's in love?" "Yes, monsieur." "But it's a stupid thing to be in love when one might be rich." "It is of no use arguing about it, monsieur." "Do you know what proposition I have come to make to you?" "No, monsieur." "If you will send your son to America, I will place a considerable sum of money in his hands, I will direct his operations, and in ten years he will return with thirty thousand francs a year." "On what conditions, monsieur?" "On condition that he says good-bye to a certain lady of our acquaintance, that's all." "And if he refuses?" "If he refuses--and that is what I expect, I have been warned--a certain agreement between him and me with regard to that lady is null and void." "Very good, monsieur, I understand! You have a right to do it, and we submit." "But you can resist; you weren't consulted about accepting my presents, you didn't know the conditions agreed upon between Madame d'Estrelle and me. There is ground for a lawsuit, and I might lose it by means of a little bad faith on the part of my opponents." "If you regard my son and myself as your opponents, you may rest easy, monsieur; we renounce your benefactions, without a shadow of hesitation." "Ah! yes, my benefactions! they are a burden to you, they make you blush!" "As we did not know that they put fetters on a person who is dear to us, they did not make us blush; indeed--I may say, monsieur," added Madame Thierry, with a mighty effort due to her devotion to her son, "your name would have been blessed in this house, if we had been certain that we owed that generosity to your solicitude for our welfare. Whatever its cause, and brief as its duration has been, we have been happy, amid all our troubles and anxieties, to live in this house once more and to enjoy to the full our most cherished memories. You bid us leave them, and we obey; but it remains for me to thank you----"