"Then I can offer it to another purchaser?" "What other?" "There is no other in view at this moment. I am not given to lying, and I shall not deal falsely with you in the matters you have placed in my charge; but you are well aware that the street is being built up, and that by to-morrow, perhaps to-night, people will be fighting for the pavilion." "Let Madame d'Estrelle take the trouble to enter into negotiations with me." "Do you want her to receive you? Very good!" "Would she receive me?" said Monsieur Antoine, and his round eyes gleamed for an instant. "Why not?" said Marcel. "Oh! yes, she would receive me in her courtyard, or at best in her ante-chamber, standing up, between two doors, as she receives a dog or an attorney!" "You are a great stickler for manners, aren't you, for a man who won't take his hat off his head for anybody? But never fear: Madame d'Estrelle is as courteous to decent people of our class as to the greatest aristocrats. To prove it, she is on the best of terms with my aunt Thierry, and they are almost friends already." "Ah!--Well, that is because madame your aunt is noble! The nobles understand each other like thieves at a fair!" "_Sapristi!_ uncle, once more I ask you what in heaven's name you have against your sister-in-law?" "I have--Well, I detest her!" "So I see; but why?" "Because she is noble. Don't talk to me about your nobles! They are all heartless and ungrateful!" "Did you love her, I wonder?" This direct question was too much for Monsieur Antoine. He turned deathly pale, then flushed with anger, swore, tore his hair and shouted in a frenzy of rage: "Did she tell you that? She pretends, she dares to say----" "Nothing at all. I have never been able to extort a word from her about you; but I have had my suspicions, and now you have confessed. Tell me everything, uncle; that will be the best way, for it will relieve you, and you will have had a good heart-searching for once in your life." Fully half an hour passed before the ex-armorer had exhausted all the spleen and bile of which his heart was full against Marcel, against Madame Thierry and against his deceased brother. When Marcel, who worried him cruelly, had succeeded in exhausting him, he carried his point, and old Antoine told him what follows, by fits and starts, forcing his nephew to extract from him bit by bit the secret of his life, which was also the secret of his character.