“I came here this evening, sir,” returned the German phlegmatically, “intending to ask M. le President for his daughter’s hand. It was my desire to give Mlle. Cecile a brilliant future by offering her so much of my fortune as she would consent to accept. But an only daughter is a child whose will is law to indulgent parents, who has never been contradicted. I have had the opportunity of observing this in many families, where parents worship divinities of this kind. And your granddaughter is not only the idol of the house, but Mme. la Presidente... you know what I mean. I have seen my father’s house turned into a hell, sir, from this very cause. My stepmother, the source of all my misfortunes, an only daughter, idolized by her parents, the most charming betrothed imaginable, after marriage became a fiend incarnate. I do not doubt that Mlle. Cecile is an exception to the rule; but I am not a young man, I am forty years old, and the difference between our ages entails difficulties which would put it out of my power to make the young lady happy, when Mme. la Presidente always carried out her daughter’s every wish and listened to her as if Mademoiselle was an oracle. What right have I to expect Mlle. Cecile to change her habits and ideas? Instead of a father and mother who indulge her every whim, she would find an egotistic man of forty; if she should resist, the man of forty would have the worst of it. So, as an honest man--I withdraw. If there should be any need to explain my visit here, I desire to be entirely sacrificed--” “If these are your motives, sir,” said the future peer of France, “however singular they may be, they are plausible--” “Do not call my sincerity in question, sir,” Brunner interrupted quickly. “If you know of a penniless girl, one of a large family, well brought up but without fortune, as happens very often in France; and if her character offers me security, I will marry her.” A pause followed; Frederic Brunner left Cecile’s grandfather and politely took leave of his host and hostess. When he was gone, Cecile appeared, a living commentary upon her Werther’s leave-taking; she was ghastly pale. She had hidden in her mother’s wardrobe and overheard the whole conversation. “Refused!...” she said in a low voice for her mother’s ear. “And why?” asked the Presidente, fixing her eyes upon her embarrassed father-in-law. “Upon the fine pretext that an only daughter is a spoilt child,” replied that gentleman. “And he is not altogether wrong there,” he added, seizing an opportunity of putting the blame on the daughter-in-law, who had worried him not a little for twenty years. “It will kill my child!” cried the Presidente, “and it is your doing!” she exclaimed, addressing Pons, as she supported her fainting daughter, for Cecile thought well to make good her mother’s words by sinking into her arms. The President and his wife carried Cecile to an easy-chair, where she swooned outright. The grandfather rang for the servants.