"You understand when I ask all these questions so immediately it is to save my son disagreeables which he might not foresee. Sometimes there are debts, embarrassing liabilities, what not! And a legatee finds himself in an inextricable thorn bush. After all, I am not the heir--but I think first of the little 'un." They were accustomed to speak of Jean among themselves as the "little one," though he was much bigger than Pierre. Suddenly Mme. Roland seemed to wake from a dream, to recall some remote fact, a thing almost forgotten that she had heard long ago, and of which she was not altogether sure. She inquired doubtingly: "Were you not saying that our poor friend Marechal had left his fortune to my little Jean?" "Yes, madame." And she went on simply: "I am much pleased to hear it; it proves that he was attached to us." Roland had risen. "And would you wish, my dear sir, that my son should at once sign his acceptance?" "No--no, M. Roland. To-morrow, at my office to-morrow, at two o'clock, if that suits you." "Yes, to be sure--yes, indeed, I should think so." Then Mme. Roland, who had also risen and who was smiling after her tears, went up to the lawyer, and laying her hand on the back of his chair while she looked at him with the pathetic eyes of a grateful mother, she said: "And now for that cup of tea, Monsieur Lecanu?" "Now I will accept it with pleasure, madame." The maid, on being summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in deep tin boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have been made for a parrot's beak, and soldered into metal cases for a voyage round the world. Next she fetched some little gray linen doilies, folded square, those tea-napkins which in thrifty families never get washed. A third time she came in with the sugar basin and cups; then she departed to heat the water. They sat waiting. No one could talk; they had too much to think about and nothing to say. Mme. Roland alone attempted a few commonplace remarks. She gave an account of the fishing excursion, and sang the praises of the _Pearl_ and of Mme. Rosemilly. "Charming! charming!" the lawyer said again and again. Roland, leaning against the marble mantelshelf as if it were winter and the fire burning, with his hands in his pockets and his lips puckered for a whistle, could not keep still, tortured by the invincible desire to give vent to his delight. The two brothers, in two armchairs that matched, one on each side of the center-table, stared in front of them, in similar attitudes full of dissimilar expression. At last the tea appeared. The lawyer took a cup, sugared it, and drank it, after having crumbled into it a little cake which was too hard to crunch. Then he rose, shook hands, and departed. "Then it is understood," repeated Roland. "To-morrow, at your place, at two?" "Quite so. To-morrow, at two." Jean had not spoken a word.