"Well, I don't flatter myself that I shall not! No matter! I will do them this favor, which will be the last." "And the first, too, my dear uncle!" And, as the document was signed, folded and safely in his pocket, Marcel added, resting his elbows on the table and looking his uncle straight in the face: "Do you know, my dear uncle of the good Lord, you must be a very mean fellow to allow your brother's country house to be sold." "Ah! there we are again!" shouted Monsieur Antoine, rising and smiting the table a genuine peasant's blow with his fist. "You would like to see me use my money, earned by the sweat of my brow, to pay for the follies of a spendthrift! Since when have artists needed to have houses of their own and fill them with a heap of gimcracks that cost the eyes out of your head, and make gardens for themselves, with bridges and summer-houses, when they don't even know how to grow a bit of milkweed? What difference does it make to me whether my brother's folly is sold, and his widow doesn't now have any great chefs in her kitchen and great noblemen at her table? They made all the trouble for themselves when they chose to receive counts and marquises, and madame would say: 'My house, my servants, my horses!'--I knew well enough where all that nonsense would bring them up! And now to-day they find they need the old rat who lives in his corner like a wise man and a philosopher, despising society, scorning luxury and giving all his time to useful work! They lower their crests and put out their paws, and he--he wouldn't give anything from pity--those people don't deserve it--he gives from pride, and that's how he gets his revenge. Go and tell that to your aunt, the beautiful princess in distress: that's the errand your mean dog of an uncle gives you to do. Go, I say, you dog of a pettifogger! What are you standing there for, staring at me?" Marcel was in fact studying his uncle's expression and attitude with his sharp gray eyes, as if he would search the lowest depths of his conscience. "Bah!" he exclaimed abruptly, as he rose, "you are very harsh, very mean, I say it again; but you are not so cruel as that! You have some reason for hating your sister-in-law which nobody has ever been able to understand, which you don't understand very clearly yourself, I fancy, but which I shall succeed in unearthing, my dear uncle, never fear, for I propose to go to work upon it, and you know that when I have set my heart upon a thing, I am like you, I never let go." As he spoke Marcel kept his eyes fixed on the rich man, and he detected a notable change in his manner. A sudden pallor drove the coarse flush from his face, which was already burned afresh by the sun of the new spring. His lips trembled, he pulled his hat down to his bushy black eyebrows, turned his back, and went out into his garden without a word.