Then, meeting Clotilde in the vestibule, where she was hanging up her hat and her umbrella, he said to her in an undertone: “Do you know that I am uneasy about your brother?” “Why so?” “I have observed him attentively. I don’t like the way in which he walks; and have you noticed what an anxious look he has at times? That has never deceived me. In short, your brother is threatened with ataxia.” “Ataxia!” she repeated turning very pale. A cruel image rose before her, that of a neighbor, a man still young, whom for the past ten years she had seen driven about in a little carriage by a servant. Was not this infirmity the worst of all ills, the ax stroke that separates a living being from social and active life? “But,” she murmured, “he complains only of rheumatism.” Pascal shrugged his shoulders; and putting a finger to his lip he went into the dining-room, where Félicité and Maxime were seated. The dinner was very friendly. The sudden disquietude which had sprung up in Clotilde’s heart made her still more affectionate to her brother, who sat beside her. She attended to his wants gayly, forcing him to take the most delicate morsels. Twice she called back Martine, who was passing the dishes too quickly. And Maxime was more and more enchanted by this sister, who was so good, so healthy, so sensible, whose charm enveloped him like a caress. So greatly was he captivated by her that gradually a project, vague at first, took definite shape within him. Since little Charles, his son, terrified him so greatly with his deathlike beauty, his royal air of sickly imbecility, why should he not take his sister Clotilde to live with him? The idea of having a woman in his house alarmed him, indeed, for he was afraid of all women, having had too much experience of them in his youth; but this one seemed to him truly maternal. And then, too, a good woman in his house would make a change in it, which would be a desirable thing. He would at least be left no longer at the mercy of his father, whom he suspected of desiring his death so that he might get possession of his money at once. His hatred and terror of his father decided him. “Don’t you think of marrying, then?” he asked, wishing to try the ground. The young girl laughed. “Oh, there is no hurry,” she answered. Then, suddenly, looking at Pascal, who had raised his head, she added: “How can I tell? Oh, I shall never marry.” But Félicité protested. When she saw her so attached to the doctor, she often wished for a marriage that would separate her from him, that would leave her son alone in a deserted home, where she herself might become all powerful, mistress of everything. Therefore she appealed to him. Was it not true that a woman ought to marry, that it was against nature to remain an old maid? And he gravely assented, without taking his eyes from Clotilde’s face. “Yes, yes, she must marry. She is too sensible not to marry.”