"Unhappily, yes. Had he never known Georges he would never have fallen in love with Mdlle. Prévol. Georges was an intimate friend of an artist whom my son patronised; a remarkably clever painter, who twelve or thirteen years ago promised to become famous, but who never fulfilled that promise. Maxime sat to this M. Tillet for a half-length portrait--the man had a genius for portraits--and Tillet introduced him to the Bohemian circle in which Georges was living. It was a very small circle, consisting of about a dozen men in all, mostly journalists and painters. Georges appeared to have a liking for my son; Maxime's youth and freshness interested him; he said, in a world where everybody was _blasé_. He invited him to little suppers of three or four intimates, at which Marie Prévol was present. From that hour my son's head was turned. He fell passionately in love with this actress. He thought of her by day and night, abandoned himself utterly to his idolatry, desired ardently to make her his wife." "He did not believe that she was married to Georges?" "That was his difficulty. In his love and reverence for her he could not endure to think of her as in a degraded position; yet if she were already a wife, Maxime could never hope to win her. In his mad, headstrong love he was ready to forgive her past career, to redeem her from her degraded position, and make her the Baroness de Maucroix. He, who had been educated in the pride of race as in the gospel, was willing to marry an actress with a tarnished character!" "Did he make you the confidante of his passion, Madame?"