“I thank you, mademoiselle,” said he. “I said that because I want to put something before you. And it is not very easy. I repeat—this is but a little hotel in a little town. I too am but a man of the people, Mademoiselle; but this hotel—my father added to it and transformed it, but it is the same property—this hotel has been handed down from father to son for a hundred years. My great-grandfather, a simple peasant, rose to be _Général de Brigade_ in the _Grand Armée_ of Napoléon. After Waterloo, he would accept no favour from the Bourbons, and retired to Brantôme, the home of his race, and with his little economies he bought the Hôtel des Grottes, at which he had worked years before as a little _va-nu-pieds_, turnspit, holder of horses—_que sais-je, moi_? Those were days, mademoiselle, of many revolutions of fortune.” “And all that means——?” asked Corinna, impressed, in spite of English prejudice, by the simple yet not inglorious ancestry of the huge innkeeper. “It means, mademoiselle,” said Bigourdin, “that I wish to present myself to you as an honest man. But as I am of no credit, myself, I would like to expose to you the honour of my family. My great-grandfather, as I have said, was _Général de Brigade_ in the _Grande Armée_. My grandfather, _simple soldat_, fought side by side with the English in the Crimea. My father, Sergeant of Artillery, lost a leg and an arm in the War of 1870. My younger brother was killed in Morocco. For me, I have done my _service militaire_. _Ou fait ce qu’on peut._ It is chance that I am forty years of age and live in obscurity. But my name is known and respected in all Périgord, mademoiselle——” “And again—all that means?” “That if a _petit hôtelier_ like me ventures to lay a proposition at the feet of a _jeune fille de famille_ like yourself—the _petit hôtelier_ wishes to assure her of the perfect _honorabilité_ of his family. In short, Mademoiselle Corinne, I love you very sincerely. I can make no phrases, for when I say I love you, it comes from the innermost depths of my being. I am a simple man,” he continued very earnestly, and with an air of hope, as Corinna flashed out no repulse, but sat sphinx-like, looking away from him across the room, “a very simple man; but my heart is loyal. Such as I am, Mademoiselle Corinne—and you have had an opportunity of judging—I have the honour to ask you if you will be my wife.”