dre, since the day when I married your mother I
have regarded you as my son. I looked forward to leaving you my practice
and my patients, to putting your foot in a golden stirrup, happy to see
you following a career consecrated to the welfare of humanity. All at
once, without giving any reason, without taking into any consideration
the effect which such a rupture might well have in the eyes of the
world, you have separated yourself from us, you have abandoned your
studies, renounced your future, in order to launch out into I know not
what eccentric life, engaging in a ridiculous trade, the refuge and the
excuse of all unclassed people."

"I follow this occupation in order to earn a living. It is bread and
butter in the meantime."

"In what meantime? While you are waiting for literary glory?"

He glanced disdainfully at the scribbling scattered over the table.

"All that is not serious, you know, and here is what I am come to tell
you. An opportunity presents itself to you, a double-swing door opening
into the future. The Bethlehem Society is founded. The most splendid of
my philanthropic dreams has taken body. We have just purchased a superb
villa at Nanterre for the housing of our first establishment. It is the
care, the management of this house that I have thought of intrusting
to you as to an _alter ego_. A princely dwelling, the salary of the
commander of a division, and the satisfaction of a service rendered to
the great human family. Say one word, and I take you to see the Nabob,
the great-hearted man who defrays the expense of our undertaking. Do you
accept?"

"No," said the other so curtly that Jenkins was somewhat put out of
countenance.

"Just so. I was prepared for this refusal when I came here. But I am
come nevertheless. I have taken for motto, 'To do good without hope,'
and I remain faithful to my motto. So then, it is understood you prefer
to the honourable, worthy, and profitable existence which I have just
proposed to you, a life of hazard without aim and without dignity?"

Andre answered nothing, but his silence spoke for him.

"Take care. You know what that decision will involve, a definitive
estrangement, but you have always wanted that. I need not tell you,"
continued Jenkins, "that to break with me is to break off relations also
with your mother. She and I are one."

The young man turned pale, hesitated a moment, then said with effort:

"If it please my mother to come to see me here, I s