"Why I called it annoying? I will tell you. You never met my first wife. When I married her, she was a lovely young girl, cultivated and charming. Perhaps I ought to have inquired into the antecedents of the family; but I was in love. I did nothing of the kind, and I was wrong. I soon discovered that my wife was one of those women whose nervous system rules the whole body. At first, I hoped I was mistaken; but a physiologist can never deceive himself long. She would be seized with fits of the deepest depression, morbid despair, followed by floods of tears, or else immoderate laughter. Her character changed little by little, until I no longer dared to take her out with me. When Germaine was born, she seemed to rally for a time, but soon became again a prey to the most violent nervous affection, and, in one of her spasms, died, leaving me a widower, with a little girl who, of course, had inherited the mother's disease. I had a daughter a prey to hysteria, as others have a deformed or a blind child. I married again, as you know; I wanted a home. I will say nothing of my second wife. You know how I loved her--so sweet, so calm, so gentle. She died when Odette was born. Ah! my friend, I should have died of grief, if it had not been for my work." He stopped a few minutes. The strong man was shaken by these sad memories, as the tempest tosses the oak tree. He continued more slowly: "For eight years Germaine and Odette grew up side by side, and I watched them with the most searching eyes. I soon found in Germaine the frightful symptoms of her mother's disease. She was excessively nervous and sensitive, so that when her aunt asked for her, it was with great satisfaction I consented. I had ceased to love her. It was cruel and selfish of me, I know; but I am only a man, and subject to the same faults and failings as the meanest of them!" "And now Germaine is coming home," replied M. Descoutures, "permit me to say, with the greatest respect, that I think you did wrong. But what is past is past. To-day, your duty--if I may venture to say that word to a man like you--is to receive your daughter as if everything were all right. You need not fear that Odette could possibly become nervous by living with her. Odette is too full of vitality, and--" M. Descoutures stopped short. Corinne had appeared, and he never spoke more than was absolutely necessary, when she was near. Corinne had painted her cheeks as red as those dolls that speak when they are pressed in the stomach. Her hair fell over her shoulders like the blonde locks of some little twelve-year-old, or the drooping branches of a weeping willow. She was beaming with happiness. Her heart was beating fast for that Paul Frager of whom she had been speaking to Odette. She had always supposed his frequent visits to the villa had been on Odette's account. But, as she learned this to have been a mistake, there was no longer any room for doubt--she, Corinne, was the beloved object of his affections.