"Very well, I shall not tell you. I gave my word of honor not to mention any names, if the offer was rejected." Marcel went to his uncle; he had a suspicion of the truth, but he had not dared suggest it to Madame d'Estrelle, thinking justly that she would reproach him for having brought her into relations with an insane old man. Moreover, he knew nothing of his uncle's fortune beyond the two millions which he admitted, and that figure, which had been often repeated to Julie, and so had prevented her from suspecting the truth, went far to destroy Marcel's suspicions. "Well, my little uncle," he said abruptly as soon as he entered the room "so you have five millions, have you?" "Why not thirty?" retorted the old man with a shrug; "have you gone mad?" Marcel worried him with questions to no purpose; the uncle was inscrutable. Moreover, a most momentous event had come to pass on his domain, and his thoughts were completely diverted from his dreams of marriage. The mysterious lily, at which he had so often gazed, which he had watched and nurtured and watered so carefully, in the hope of being able to give it his name, had unexpectedly, during those few days of forgetfulness and neglect, put forth a sturdy shoot, which was already laden with swelling buds; indeed, one of the buds had partly opened, displaying a corolla soft as satin, of an incomparable sheeny white, with bright red stripes. That exotic plant surpassed in oddity and in beauty all its congeners, and the frantic horticulturist, endowed with new life and almost consoled for his matrimonial mishap, exclaimed again and again, as he paced his hothouse floor in intense excitement, pausing at intervals to gloat over the budding of his plant: "There it is! there it is! my reputation is made. That shall be the _Antonia Thierrii_, and all the collectors in Europe may burst with rage if they choose." "Well, well!" said Marcel to himself, "is it the _Antonia_ or the countess that my uncle is in love with?" III Marcel, seeing that his uncle's vanity as a horticulturist had resumed the upper hand, and thinking that he might exploit his delight to the advantage of his aunt and cousin, lavished the most fulsome praise on the future Antonia. "You intend, of course, to present it to the Royal Garden. The learned professors will hold you in the greatest esteem!" "Oh! as to that, not much!" replied Monsieur Antoine; "they can look at it to their heart's content, describe it in their fine language, _specificize_ it as they say; but it's the only specimen of its kind, and I won't part with it until I have a lot of bulbs." "But what if it dies without offspring?" "Why, then my name will live in the catalogues!" "That isn't enough! If I were in your place I would have it painted, in case of accident."