And Duchoux, turning towards his wife, who was knitting in the shade: "Clear off a chair, Josephine." Mordiane then saw a young woman, who appeared already old, as women look old at twenty-five in the provinces, for want of attention to their persons, regular washing, and all the little cares bestowed on feminine toilet which make them fresh, and preserve, till the age of fifty, the charm and beauty of the sex. With a neckerchief over her shoulders, her hair clumsily braided--though it was lovely hair, thick and black, you could see that it was badly brushed--she stretched out towards a chair hands like those of a servant, and removed an infant's robe, a knife, a fag-end of packe-bread, an empty flower-pot, and a greasy plate left on the seat, which she then moved over towards the visitor. He sat down, and presently noticed that Duchoux's work-table had on it, in addition to the books and papers, two salads recently gathered, a wash-hand basin, a hair-brush, a napkin, a revolver, and a number of cups which had not been cleaned. The architect perceived this look, and said with a smile: "Excuse us! there is a little disorder in the room--it is owing to the children." And he drew across his chair, in order to chat with his client. "So then you are looking out for a piece of ground in the neighborhood of Marseilles?" His breath, though not close to the baron, carried towards the latter that odor of garlic which the people of the South exhale as flowers do their perfume. Mordiane asked: "Is it your son that I met under the plane-trees?" "Yes. Yes, the second." "You have two of them?" "Three, monsieur; one a year." And Duchoux looked full of pride. The baron was thinking: "If they all have the same perfume, their nursery must be a real conservatory." He continued: "Yes, I would like a nice piece of ground near the sea, on a little solitary strip of beach--" Thereupon Duchoux proceeded to explain. He had ten, twenty, fifty, a hundred, or more, pieces of ground of the kind required, at different prices and suited to different tastes. He talked just as a fountain flows, smiling, self-satisfied, wagging his bald round head. And Mordiane was reminded of a little woman, fair-haired, slight, with a somewhat melancholy look, and a tender fashion of murmuring, "My darling," of which the mere remembrance made the blood stir in his veins. She had loved him passionately, madly, for three months; then, becoming pregnant in the absence of her husband, who was a governor of a colony, she had run away and concealed herself, distracted with despair and terror, till the birth of the child, which Mordiane carried off one summer's evening, and which they had not laid eyes on afterwards.