Then again, his time, his fortune, as well as he himself, are entirely at his own disposal. He has neither father nor mother. He has only a younger brother, who is at present serving in an artillery regiment, and a very rich and very old aunt, who has no children. So he is the head of the family. Martelle-Simieuse belongs to him. It is an estate somewhere out in Vendée. Of course, I have not the remotest idea of going and burying myself out in Vendée for half of the year; but it's quite necessary to have a country seat, and Vendée is just as good as anywhere else. All which information I picked up in the short space of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at the outside. Madame Mercerey, seeing that we were engaged in a serious conversation, lengthened the interval for the benefit of us four--I might say of us three, for papa never uttered a word--might even say of us two, for mama didn't say much either. All the information I obtained by skilfully turning the conversation in the most natural manner, and without asking a single question. This morning mama told me that she was absolutely shocked at my calmness and precision last night. Yes, I have a practical side to my nature. I am anxious to place my life in certain unassailable conditions of independence and security, without which there could be neither happiness nor love, nor anything else worth having. For instance, I'm determined not to have a mother-in-law. I don't know what I wouldn't give _not_ to have a mother-in-law. I don't intend to have to quarrel with one. At home a wife should be at home, and only have her husband to deal with. It was on account of that decision that I rejected the little Marquis de Marillac last year. He was one of the five. I could have loved him; really, I had already begun to. Then I saw his mother. Then I stopped. She was a terrible creature--strict, lugubrious, and ferociously _dévote_. She expected her daughter-in-law to go and bury herself in the depths of Bretagne for eight months out of the twelve. Certainly, it would have been a saving--but at what a cost! What slavery! Besides, what would be the good of getting married, if, the day after leaving girlhood, the wife had to become a child and go back into leading-strings again the next day? Now let me see. Where was I? I've really quite forgotten. Oh, I remember. The music began again, as I said. It was the last piece. We four sat down in a row in the following order: I, mama, papa, and he. It was scarcely an hour before that I had first set eyes on him, and we were already quite a little family party, we four, sitting stupidly and stiffly in a straight line on our chairs. Some short waltzes of Beethoven were played, with intervals of one minute between. During the first interval mother said to me: "Well, what do you think of him, now that you have seen him?" "The same as before, mama." "Is he all right?" "He'll do." "Then your father may venture to ask him to dinner?"