She began to talk to her father of this, and he, incensed at the suspicion this demand implied, became surly and defiant. He talked to the neighbors of his desire to live alone and accused Manon of ingratitude and coldness. She held to her rights, however, and succeeded finally in having her estate settled. She found at the end that she had an income of just five hundred and thirty francs a year. The disagreement with her father made her unhappy. She wrote Roland letters full of complaints and sighs. She saw everything black. She declared that they were farther apart than ever, that her heart was breaking. After a few weeks of melancholy she came to an understanding with her father and wrote joyously again. This occurred several times until at last Roland grew seriously out of patience with her. He told her that it was her lack of firmness that was at the bottom of her father’s conduct; that she was “always irresolute, always uncertain, reasoned always by contraries.” His letters became brief, dry, impatient. Finally, however, he wrote M. Phlipon, asking for Manon. The difficulty that Roland had foreseen with his prospective father-in-law was at once realized. The old gentleman, incensed that his daughter would not give him Roland’s letters to examine before he replied, answered in a way which came very near ending negotiations on the spot. Since his daughter had taken her property into her own hands and since she refused to let him see the correspondence which had passed between her and Roland, she could enjoy still further the privileges her majority gave her and marry without his consent. Roland wrote to Manon, on receiving this curt response, that the _soul_ of M. Phlipon horrified him; that he loved her as much as ever, but—“your father, my friend, your father,” and delicately hinted that it would be impossible for him to present such a man to his own family. This was in September. For two months they lived in a state of miserable uncertainty. Roland accused Manon of irresolution, of inconsistency, and inconsequence; she accused him of fearing the prejudices of society, of caring less for her than for his family’s good-will. With M. Phlipon Manon alternately quarrelled and made up. Wretched as the lovers were, their letters nearly always ended in protestations of affection and appeals for confidence. The first of November Mademoiselle Phlipon brought matters to a crisis by leaving her father for good and retiring to the Convent of the Congregation. She wrote Sophie, who, of course, had known nothing of her affair with Roland, but to whom she had often written freely of her trouble with her father, that she had taken this resolution in order to save her family, if possible, from further disgrace.