During this discussion Fanchette, who had been coming and going, was constantly on the verge of spilling the food or breaking a plate, for she was so fearful that her master and mistress were not in accord. Nobody paid any attention to her cooking. It was not to be wondered at in Madame; one could give her boiled beef and potatoes every day and she would never notice it, but Monsieur, who, as a little boy, was so fond of his food and had such a good appetite, Monsieur who was able to appreciate a stew! It was true then that over there in Paris they had turned his head and exhausted his brain. At dessert, Albert was the first to break the long silence which had succeeded his mother's last words, by inquiring: "Has Elizabeth come to see you?" "Only once." "And you?" "I went there five times." As if to excuse herself for not having more frequently renewed her attempts at reconciliation, she added: "I feel so uncomfortable in their house." He could have embraced her for this word which had come so spontaneously from the poor woman's lips: "So do I, Mother.... I have always felt uncomfortable ... in my own house." She regretted her remark and again they were silent under the indignant gaze of Fanchette, who went back to the pantry, raising her only available arm: he had swallowed his pancakes as if they were medicine, without showing the slightest pleasure! As they were drinking their coffee, the last hope of the unhappy cook who served it boiling, as he liked it, Albert finally decided to say what his mother had been hoping to hear since his arrival, and the delay of which had wounded her to the heart: "And the children?" "They are well," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "Do you see them?" "Seldom. Sometimes I go to the park to meet them, but they are not always there." "You, you _may_ see them?" This was said with a deep melancholy, but as the declaration of an inevitable fact. She rose from her chair, came over to him and placed her two hands on his shoulders. "Albert, my Albert, you are not going to desert them?" "We cannot push them from us," he murmured in a low voice, growing tense. "That would be worse." But he added in spite of himself: "Do you think that it is not painful for me?" She knew his grief and bent farther toward him. Then he took her in his arms. "Mother ... one may make mistakes in love, may love many times, but one has only one mother. I dare not take theirs from them." "Marie Louise, Philippe ..." said Mme. Derize simply, relying on the power of those two names. In his turn, he got up to free himself from the motherly embrace. "Ah, do not take away my strength. I need it, I assure you." "You would need less to come back to us."