To-morrow is Thursday and there is no school. Bernard thinks he may meet his friend somewhere. He does not mean to go back to the _lycée_; he thinks he can do without the last lectures and finish preparing for his examination by himself. “To-morrow,” says Olivier, “I’m going to St. Lazare railway station at 11.30 to meet my Uncle Edouard, who is arriving from Le Havre, on his way from England. In the afternoon, I’m engaged to go to the Louvre with Dhurmer. The rest of the time I’ve got to work.” “Your Uncle Edouard?” “Yes. He’s a half brother of Mamma’s. He’s been away for six months and I hardly know him; but I like him very much. He doesn’t know I’m going to meet him and I’m rather afraid I mayn’t recognize him. He’s not in the least like the rest of the family; he’s somebody quite out of the common.” “What does he do?” “He writes. I’ve read nearly all his books; but he hasn’t published anything for a long time.” “Novels?” “Yes; kind of novels.” “Why have you never told me about them?” “Because you’d have wanted to read them; and if you hadn’t liked them....” “Well, finish your sentence.” “Well, I should have hated it. There!” “What makes you say that he’s out of the common?” “I don’t exactly know. I told you I hardly know him. It’s more of a presentiment. I feel that he’s interested in all sorts of things that don’t interest my parents and that there’s nothing that one couldn’t talk to him about. One day--it was just before he went away--he had been to lunch with us; all the time he was talking to Papa I felt he kept looking at me and it began to make me uncomfortable; I was going to leave the room--it was the dining-room--where we had stayed on after coffee, but then he began to question Papa about me, which made me more uncomfortable than ever; and suddenly Papa got up and went to fetch some verses I had written and which I had been idiotic enough to show him.” “Verses of yours?”