M. Dulaurens, who was taking short steps up and down the room for the sake of his digestion (for this room with its ever closed bookcases was particularly useful to him for this health-giving exercise), stopped suddenly and seemed to realise at last that something unusual was going on in his house. “On your account?” he repeated uneasily. With the brusque quickness of the irresolute, Alice at once burnt her boats: “Father, don’t you wish me to be happy?” she asked. “Certainly, certainly! We wish it above all things.” And already he saw all sorts of difficulties to disturb his peaceful existence in the future and even his digestion at the present time. However, he loved his pretty Alice, whose gentleness harmonised with his own character, and he would even have adored and spoilt her, had he not been restrained by the fear of his wife and the vain desire to imitate in her absence her authoritative ways. Distracted between so many feelings, whose complexity frightened him and hardened his usually benign face, he demanded an explanation. “You talk to me about Madame Guibert and then about your happiness. I don’t understand.” Alice hesitated no longer, and her nervousness itself prevented her from guessing her father’s thoughts. “She is going to ask for my hand on behalf of her son.” “The captain?” “Yes.” She went on more falteringly, the whole force of her love summed up in the poor little hope which her words expressed: “Father, I beg you, you must consent and persuade Mamma.” But for the closing phrase M. Dulaurens would have been touched. He took in things in detail, and the last words always made most impression on his mind. “Persuade Mamma!” he cried. “It is always your mother,” he said sharply, and began once more his walk up and down. He made sure that the door was closed, stopped to listen, and then, encouraged by the silence and sure of their privacy, he let himself go boldly: “Your mother! Don’t you know, my dear, that my consent is of far more importance? The law demands that. And this law is just. There must be one supreme authority in a household, and this authority is vested in the head of the family, the _Paterfamilias_!” He threw a rapid glance at the mirror to study his own omnipotent appearance. He seemed to have forgotten the serious subject of the interview, which the trembling Alice feared to recall to him. Must she again pronounce the burning name of Marcel Guibert? But coming down to earth again M. Dulaurens spared her at least this new exhibition of courage, as he repeated word for word a sentence of his wife’s: “This young man is a hero. Heroism makes him one of us!” By which his wife had meant, that one might safely receive Marcel Guibert in a drawing-room so distinguished as that of La Chênaie! Not wishing to commit himself, he hastened to raise several objections: