Although D’Argenton had written kindly, Ida was still nervous, and wished to arrange the meeting in her own way. Consequently she refused to permit him to go with her to the station in the little carriage. She gave him several injunctions, painful to them both, as if they had each been guilty of some great fault, and to the boy inexpressibly mortifying. “You will remain at the end of the garden,” she said, “and do not come until I call you.” The child lingered an hour in expectation, and when he heard the grinding of the wheels, ran down the garden walk, and concealed himself behind the gooseberry bushes. He heard D’Argenton speak. His tone was harder, sterner than ever. He heard his mother’s sweet voice answer gently, “Yes, my dear—no, my dear.” Then a window in the tower opened. “Come, Jack, I want you, my child!” The boy’s heart beat quickly as he mounted the stairs. D’Argenton was leaning back in the tall armchair, his light hair gleaming against the dark wood. Ida stood by his side, and did not even hold out her hand to the little fellow. The lecture he received was short and affectionate to a certain extent. “Jack,” he said, in conclusion, “life is not a romance; you must work in earnest. I am willing to believe in your penitence; and if you behave well, I will certainly love you, and we three may live together happily. Now listen to what I propose. I am a very busy man.—I am, nevertheless, willing to devote two hours every day to your education. If you will study faithfully, I can make of you, frivolous as you are by nature, a man like myself.” “You hear, Jack,” said his mother, alarmed at his silence, “and you understand the sacrifice that your friend is ready to make for you—” “Yes, mamma,” stammered Jack. “Wait, Charlotte,” interrupted D’Argenton; “he must decide for himself: I wish to force no one.” Jack, petrified at hearing his mother called Charlotte, and unable to find words to express his sense of such generosity, ended by saying nothing. Seeing the child’s embarrassment, his mother gently pushed him into the poet’s arms, who pressed a theatrical kiss on his brow. “Ah, dear, how good you are!” murmured the poor woman, while the child, dismissed by an imperative gesture, hastily ran down the stairs. In reality Jack’s installation in the house was a relief to the poet. He loved Ida, whom he called Charlotte in memory of Goethe, and also because he wished to obliterate all her past, and to wipe out even the name of Ida de Barancy. He loved her in his own fashion, and made of her a complete slave. She had no will, no opinion of her own, and D’Argenton had grown tired of being perpetually agreed with. Now, at least, he would have some one to contradict, to argue with, to tutor, and to bully; and it was in this spirit that he undertook Jack’s education, for which he made all arrangements with that methodical solemnity characteristic of the man’s smallest actions.