"Well, I do not intend to importune you any further, mademoiselle.... That would be poor return for your kind invitation.... If, then, you will permit it, I say, 'until next Sunday.'" "Until next Sunday!" Thérèse turned into the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. Halting words called her back. "It is I again, mademoiselle!" Boerzell said, running up to her.... "There was one last word I forgot to say.... It is possible that you have suspected an interested motive...." With a gesture of the hand, Thérèse denied that she had. "It does not matter!" Boerzell retorted. "I would not, for anything in the world, be mistaken for one of the young gentlemen who seek a fine marriage, a useful marriage.... Moreover, you should consult M. Raindal.... He will tell you himself that my scientific life is, to use the current expression, all marked out.... My professors like me and help me.... My competitors are few and are, most of them, but second-rate men.... From the École des Hautes Études, I am therefore bound to enter the Sorbonne or the Collège de France, and thence, I hope, the Institute.... A marriage with you would certainly not have been unhelpful.... Nevertheless, without this marriage my career, happiness apart, will be the same.... This was what I wished to say.... You will agree with me that, for the sake of our future friendship, these details have their importance!" "They might have perhaps, if I had doubted you...." "Phew!" the young savant said with skepticism. "You say this.... You are polite.... It remains a fact that one cannot be too cautious in such matters.... But I am delaying you, excuse me.... Until Sunday, mademoiselle...." "That is agreed!" said Thérèse, in a tone that already showed comradeship. When she entered the study where M. Raindal sat talking with her Uncle Cyprien, the latter welcomed her with a volley of compliments: "Pristi! My nephew!... How well we are looking! And such shining eyes! Gayety all over your face! I could swear that you have not spent an altogether boring afternoon!" "So it looks!" M. Raindal approved shyly. "Well, it may be so ..." Thérèse replied.... "Guess whom I met? Little Boerzell. You remember him, father? The would-be fiancé at the Saulvard party.... A very strange young man; he has a whole series of theories and systems which amused me.... I am still laughing now.... Well, I asked him to visit us ... and he will probably come next Sunday!" "You did quite right, dear!" M. Raindal asserted, as much in order to conciliate Thérèse as because of a mania he had to praise his inferiors.... "M. Boerzell is a young man with a rare future.... Everybody at the Académie holds him in high esteem.... It was only yesterday that someone was telling me...." "What about you, uncle?" Thérèse interrupted. "It is my turn to ask you questions! Can you tell me what you are doing here, on a week day, a Wednesday, and at the sacred hour of the apéritif!"