"Listen to me, papa," she said, the following morning. "We are going to leave here at the end of September; that's settled, isn't it? We are going everywhere, a month to one place and a fortnight to another--just as we fancy. Well, _I_ want you to take me now to all the places where you fought. Do you know, I've heard that you fell in love with a princess? Suppose we were to come across her again, what should you say to that? Wasn't it at Pordenone that you got those great scars?" And, taking her father's face in her two hands, she pressed her lips to the white, hollow places which had been marked by the finger of Glory. "I want you to tell me all about everything," she continued; "it will be ever so nice to go all through your campaigns again with your daughter. If one winter will not be enough for it all, why, we'll just take two. And when I'm quite myself again--we are quite rich enough surely, Henriette and I; you've worked hard enough for us--well, we'll just sell the refinery, and we'll all come here. We'll go to Paris for two months of the year to enjoy ourselves; that will be quite enough, won't it? Then as you always like to have something to do, you can take your farm again from Tetevuide's son-in-law. We'll have some cows and a nice farm-yard for mamma--do you hear, mamma? I shall be outdoors all day; and the end of it will be that I shall get _too_ well--you'll see. And then we'll have people to visit us all the time. In the country we can allow ourselves that little luxury--that won't ruin us--and we shall be as happy, as happy--you'll see." Travelling and plans of all kinds--she talked of nothing but the future now. She spoke of it as of a promised thing, a certainty. It was she, now, who made every one hopeful, and she concealed the fact that she was dying so skilfully and pretended so well that she wanted to live, that M. Mauperin on seeing her and listening to her dreams, gave himself up to dreaming with her of years which they had before them and which would be full of peace, tranquility, and happiness. Sometimes, even, the illusions that the invalid had invented herself dazzled her too, for an instant, and she would begin to believe in her own fiction, forget herself for a moment and, quite deceived like the others, she would say to herself, "Suppose, after all, that I should get well!" At other times she would delight in going back to the past. She would tell about things that had happened, about her own feelings, funny incidents that she remembered, or she would talk about her childish pleasures. It was as though she had risen from her death-bed to embrace her father for the last time with all she could muster of her youth.