The Duke was very much puzzled. He found the situation simple enough, between two persons more or less attracted toward each other and separated only by scruples, which had little importance in his eyes; but in his opinion, Urbain was complicating this situation by whimsical delicacy. If Mlle de Saint-Geneix should accept him without really loving him, the Marquis felt that his own love for her would die, and in the loss of this love which was killing him, the thunderbolt would fall the quicker. This was a sort of blind alley which drove the Duke wellnigh to despair, but into which it was none the less necessary respectfully to follow his brother's wishes and ideas. By conversing longer with him, and sounding him to the very depths of his being, Gaëtan reached the conclusion that the only joy it was possible to give him would consist in aiding him to a knowledge of Caroline's affection and to a hope of its patient and delicate growth. So long as his imagination could wander through this garden of early emotions, romantic and pure, the Marquis was lulled by pleasant ideas and exquisite joys. As soon, however, as he saw the uncertain approach of the hour when he must decide upon his course and risk an avowal, he felt a dark presentiment of an inevitable disaster, and, unhappily for him, he was not mistaken. Caroline would refuse him and take to flight, or, if she should accept his hand, his aged mother would be driven to despair and perhaps sink under the loss of her illusions. The Duke plunged deeply into these reflections, for Urbain began to drowse, after having made him promise that he would leave to get some rest himself as soon as he should see him fairly asleep. Gaëtan was vexed at finding no way to be of real service to him. He would have liked to tell Caroline the danger, to appeal to her kindliness and her esteem, asking her to humor the moral condition of the invalid, veiling the future to him, whatever it might be, and soothing him with vague hopes and fair dreams; but this would be pushing the poor girl down a very dangerous slope, and she was not so childish as not to understand that she would thus risk her reputation and probably her own peace of mind. Destiny, which is very active in dramas of this kind, since it always meets with souls predisposed to yield to its action, did what the Duke dared not do. XIII