Then there was another pause, during which George sat down in a corner, apart from them. Urmand took out a cigar and lit it, offering one to the innkeeper. But Michel Voss shook his head. He was very unhappy, feeling that everything around him was wrong. Here was a son of his, of whom he was proud, the only living child of his first wife, a young man of whom all people said good things; a son whom he had always loved and trusted, and who even now, at this very moment, was showing himself to be a real man; and yet he was forced to quarrel with this son, and say harsh things to him, and sit away from him with a man who was after all no more than a stranger to him, with whom he had no sympathy; when it would have made him so happy to be leaning on his son's shoulder, and discussing their joint affairs with unreserved confidence, asking questions about wages, and suggesting possible profits. He was beginning to hate Adrian Urmand. He was beginning to hate the young man, although he knew that it was his duty to go on with the marriage. Urmand, as soon as his cigar was lighted, got up and began to knock the balls about on the table. That gloom of silence was to him most painful. 'If you would not mind it, M. Urmand,' said George, 'I should like to take a walk with you.' 'To take a walk?' 'If it would not be disagreeable. Perhaps it would be well that you and I should have a few minutes of conversation.' 'I will leave you together here,' said the father, 'if you, George, will promise me that there shall be no violence.' Urmand looked at the innkeeper as though he did not like the proposition, but Michel took no notice of his look. 'There certainly shall be none on my part,' said George. 'I don't know what M. Urmand's feelings may be.' 'O dear, no; nothing of the kind,' said Urmand. 'But I don't exactly see what we are to talk about.' Michel, however, paid no attention to this, but walked slowly out of the room. 'I really don't know what there is to say,' continued Urmand, as he knocked the balls about with his cue. 'There is this to say. That girl up there was induced to promise that she would be your wife, when she believed that--I had forgotten her.' 'O dear, no; nothing of the kind.' 'That is her story. Go and ask her. If it is so, or even if it suits her now to say so, you will hardly, as a man, endeavour to drive her into a marriage which she does not wish. You will never do it, even if you do try. Though you go on trying till you drive her mad, she will never be your wife. But if you are a man, you will not continue to torment her, simply because you have got her uncle to back you.' 'Who says she will never marry me?' 'I say so. She says so.' 'We are betrothed to each other. Why should she not marry me?'