as ungrateful. It was a chance,
it was a moment, that will not occur again. It was better that the idea
should seem to come from me, not from you, and it seemed the only way to
save that pretty girl from some marriage she will hate. I thought you
would at least be ready to throw yourself at her feet--but you were not
even that, Angelot. You refused her--you refused Mademoiselle Helene,
after all you had told me--and do you know what that mother of hers has
been planning for her? No? Don't look at me with such eyes; it is your
own doing. Madame de Sainfoy would arrange a marriage for her with
General Ratoneau, if Herve would consent. He says he will not, he says a
convent would be better--"

"Ah!" Angelot gave a choked cry, and stamped violently in the sand. "Ah!
Ratoneau or a convent! Dieu! Not while I live!"

"Very fine to say so now!" said Monsieur Joseph, shaking his head.

He was ready to go out shooting in the fresh morning air. His gun leaned
against the bench where he was sitting, and his dog watched him with
eager eyes. His delicate face was dark with melancholy disgust as he
looked at the boy he loved, tramping restlessly up and down between him
and the fir trees.

"You don't listen to me, Uncle Joseph; you don't understand me!" Angelot
cried out passionately. "What do you take me for? It was for her sake
that I answered as I did. It was because she had told me, one minute
before, that her mother would kill her if she knew that she--that I--"

He sprang to the bench, threw himself down by Monsieur Joseph, flung his
arm around his shoulders.

"Ah, little uncle, voyons, tell me everything. You said you would help
me--"

"Help you! I am well repaid when I try to help you!" said Joseph, with a
short laugh.

"But that was not the way! Come, come!" and Angelot laid his head
against the little uncle's shoulder, coaxing and caressing him as he
might have done ten years before, as Riette would do now.

"Ah, diable! what would you have? I offered them you in the place of
Ratoneau or a convent, and you would not even wait to hear what they
said. Nonsense about her mother! Mothers do not kill their children in
these days. Mademoiselle is a little extravagant."

"I don't believe it. She knows her mother. I think Madame de Sainfoy
would stop at nothing--no ill-treatment--to force her own way. I saw it
in her face, I met her eyes when you dragged me into the room. Uncle
Joseph, I tell you she hates me already, and