M. de Vauvenargues paused a moment, then added in a low tone-- “It need not have been, Luc, it need not have been.” The young man did not reply, and his father sighed. “You were always obstinate, Luc,” he added with a sad tenderness, “from the day you insisted on entering the army--which was Joseph’s place--as the second son.” Luc moved now; he turned his back to the window, facing now the long, dark room, the table on which the fine cloth, cakes, and wine still gleamed, facing the figure of his father in full peruke and black velvet, brilliants and much Michelin lace. “I am going to prove myself still further obstinate, Monseigneur,” he said. He stifled a cough and braced his stooping figure. “I have wished--for some weeks--since I returned from the convent--to speak to you. I think this is my chance.” The old man folded the paper across mechanically, and the great ruffles round his wrists shook with the quivering of his fair hands. “What can you have to say, Luc?” he asked quickly. His son came slowly to the table with the hesitating and uncertain step that was the accompaniment of his imperfect sight. “I want to tell you, Monseigneur, what I mean to do.” He seated himself on the old, high-backed walnut chair with the fringed leather seat which had been his since the time he had sat there, a stately child in skirts, murmuring grace or eating sugared macaroons. “What you mean to do?” repeated the Marquis. Luc raised his face. In the cold light of the early year and the shadows of the dark room this face looked like a mask of colourless clay modelled in lines of perpetual pain. The white curls of his wig fell either side on to his green coat, and his hands were again white, one holding the back of the black chair, one resting on the lace cloth. He looked at his father steadily, and the blood receded from the Marquis’s strong features. “What do you mean to do?” he asked. “Eh, Luc?” “Monseigneur,”--though the voice was hoarse and broken by constant coughing, there were in it the old sweet notes--“I fear to give you pain. Yet I cannot think that you will not understand.” “I am ready,” said his father, “to do anything you wish--you know that--anything.” Again Luc braced himself with an obvious effort; his bent shoulders straightened and he held up his head. “I want--I mean to--go to Paris.” “To--Paris! You want to leave Aix!” “Monseigneur, I must.” “Luc,”--the Marquis also was endeavouring to remain calm,--“why do you wish to leave your home? What do you intend to do in Paris?” The young man answered swiftly-- “Give myself a chance--a last chance.” “But you have refused your appointment.” “Forgive me--I do not mean in that way--that is over. You know. Now it is--my soul, unaided. I must satisfy myself before I die. Who knows what is after? And if I leave my life at this I shall have been a sluggard. _I shall not have expressed what was in me to express._”