"And allow a house to be built so near my own," said Julie, "overlooking my garden, and almost overlooking my apartments." "No, you would require that the house should turn its back to you and _take the air_ from the street or from my uncle's garden." "Who might your uncle be?" queried the baroness, with an indescribable touch of contempt in her tone. "Monsieur Marcel Thierry," said the countess, "is a near relative of my wealthy neighbor, Monsieur Antoine Thierry, of whom you must certainly have heard." "Oh! yes, a former tradesman." "An armorer," rejoined Marcel. "He made his fortune in the colonies without ever setting foot on a ship, and, thanks to shrewd planning and good luck, he made several millions in his chimney corner, you might say." "I congratulate him," replied the baroness. "And he lives in this neighborhood?" "His house faces the new court; but his garden is separated only by a wall from the Comtesse d'Estrelle's, and the pavilion forms a sort of elbow between the two estates. Now my uncle might purchase the pavilion, either to straighten his own lines by destroying it, or to repair it and turn it into a green-house or gardener's lodge." "So the wealthy Monsieur Thierry has his eye on the pavilion," observed the baroness, "and perhaps he has commissioned you----" "He has commissioned me to do nothing," Marcel interrupted in a firm tone. "He has no knowledge whatever of the affairs of my other clients." "Then you are his solicitor also?" "Naturally, madame la baronne; but that will not prevent me from making him pay the highest possible price for whatever it may please madame la comtesse to sell him, and he will not take it ill of me. He is too good a man of business not to know the value of a piece of real estate that he really wants." "But I have not decided to sell the property we are talking about," said the countess, emerging from a sort of vague reverie. "It does not annoy me at all. It is occupied, I am told, by a most excellent person of quiet habits." "True, madame," said Marcel; "but the rent is so small that it will increase your income very slightly. However, if you prefer to keep it, it will be of use to you, in that it represents a substantial security for the interest on your debts." "We will talk about this again, Monsieur Thierry. I will think it over and you will advise me further. Tell me the total amount of the gift to be made to me." "About thirty thousand francs." "Should I express my thanks for it?" "If I were in your place, I would do nothing of the kind!" cried the baroness. "Do so by all means," said the solicitor in an undertone. "A word of amiable and modest resignation costs a heart like yours nothing at all." The countess wrote two lines and handed them to Marcel. "Let us hope," he said, as he rose to go, "that the Marquis d'Estrelle will be touched by your gentleness."