"I can't say that I wasn't rather tempted. It's no good setting up for being better than I am; and then, too, with you I don't make any pretences. Well, I'll own that just for a minute I was very nearly caught. It was M. Barousse who arranged it all--very nicely indeed. Then, here at home, they worked me up to it; mamma and Henri besieged me; I was bored to death about it all day long. And then, too, quite exceptionally for me, I began to have fancies, too. Anyhow, it is quite certain that I slept very badly two nights. These big fortunes do keep you awake. Then, too, to be quite just, I must say that I thought a great deal about papa in the midst of it all. Wouldn't he have been proud--wouldn't he, now? Wouldn't he have revelled in my four thousand a year? He has so much vanity always where I am concerned. Do you remember his indignation and wrath that time? 'A son-in-law who would allow my daughter to get in an omnibus!' He was superb, wasn't he? Then I began to think of you--yes, of you--and your ideas, your paradoxes, your theories, of all sorts of things you had said to me; I thought of your contempt for money, and as I thought of it--well, I suppose it is catching, for I felt the same contempt myself. And so all at once, one fine morning, I just cut it all short. No, you influence me too much, my dear boy, decidedly." "Well, but I'm--I'm an idiot, Renee. Oh, I'm so sorry. I--I thought that sort of thing was not catching--indeed I did. Come, really now, was it my fault?" "Yes, yours--in a great measure--and then just a little his fault, too." "Ah!"