“But, Uncle,” I stuttered finally, “it’s I.... I have come to see you--according to leave given by you. I wrote to you; but my letter ... here it is! my letter and I arrive together. Excuse my carelessness.” “Ah, you should have told me. It is I that ask pardon of you, my dear nephew.” A sudden change this! Lerne showed eagerness to welcome me! he blushed and seemed confused and almost servile. This embarrassment, misplaced with regard to me, shocked me. “Ha ha! you’ve come with a mechanical carriage,” he added. “Hum, there’s a place to put it in, isn’t there?” He opened both folding-doors. “Here one has often to be one’s own servant,” he said, while the old hinges creaked. Thereupon he burst into an awkward sort of laugh. I could have wagered, looking at his perplexed expression, that he had no desire to do so, and that his thoughts were far away from joking. The postman had taken his leave. “Is the coach-house still there?” I said, pointing to the right at a brick building. “Yes, yes. I did not recognize you because of your mustache--hum! Yes, your mustache. You hadn’t one long ago ... had you? Well, and how old are you?” “Thirty-one, uncle.” At the sight of the coach-house my heart stopped. The dog-cart was moldering there, half buried under logs, and there, as in the neighboring stable which was full of odds and ends, the spider webs were hanging whole or in shreds. “Thirty-one, already,” went on Lerne in a vague and obviously distracted manner. “But, Uncle, say _tu_ and _toi_ to me, as long ago.” “Ah, yes, dear ... Nicolas, eh?” I was very ill at ease, but he did not seem more at his ease than I was. My presence clearly annoyed him. It is always an interesting thing for an intruder to learn why he is so,--I seized my valise. Lerne observed my gesture and seemed to form a sudden resolve. “Let it be--let it be, Nicholas,” he said in a tone of command. “I’ll send to fetch your luggage shortly. But first we must have a talk. Come for a walk.” He took my arm and drew me towards the park. He was still reflecting, however. We passed near the _château_. With few exceptions the shutters were closed. The roof in many places was sinking in, sometimes even broken, and the moldy walls from which the whitewash had disappeared in large flakes here and there showed their masonry. The plants in boxes still surrounded the house, but, to tell the truth, for several winters no one had thought of putting the verbenas and orange-trees and laurels under cover. Standing in their battered and rotten tubs they were all dead. The sandy carriage-drive, of yore so carefully raked, might have imagined itself a second-rate meadow, there was so much grass growing there mingled with nettles and hemlock. It was like the castle of “Sleeping Beauty” on the Prince’s arrival. Lerne, clinging to my arm, walked without further talk.