press that I cannot give you
the proof you ask to-day. There is too much between M. de La Tour d'Azyr
and me. Also you do me and my class--whatever it may be--less than justice
when you say that obligations of honour are not binding upon us. So
binding do I count them, that, if I would, I could not now draw back.

If hereafter you should persist in the harsh intention you express, I
must suffer it. That I shall suffer be assured.

Your affectionate and grateful godson

Andre-Louis

He dispatched that letter by M. de Kercadiou's groom, and conceived this
to be the end of the matter. It cut him keenly; but he bore the wound
with that outward stoicism he affected.

Next morning, at a quarter past eight, as with Le Chapelier--who had come
to break his fast with him--he was rising from table to set out for
the Bois, his housekeeper startled him by announcing Mademoiselle de
Kercadiou.

He looked at his watch. Although his cabriolet was already at the door,
he had a few minutes to spare. He excused himself from Le Chapelier, and
went briskly out to the anteroom.

She advanced to meet him, her manner eager, almost feverish.

"I will not affect ignorance of why you have come," he said quickly, to
make short work. "But time presses, and I warn you that only the most
solid of reasons can be worth stating."

It surprised her. It amounted to a rebuff at the very outset, before she
had uttered a word; and that was the last thing she had expected from
Andre-Louis. Moreover, there was about him an air of aloofness that was
unusual where she was concerned, and his voice had been singularly cold
and formal.

It wounded her. She was not to guess the conclusion to which he had
leapt. He made with regard to her--as was but natural, after all--the
same mistake that he had made with regard to yesterday's letter from his
godfather. He conceived that the mainspring of action here was solely
concern for M. de La Tour d'Azyr. That it might be concern for himself
never entered his mind. So absolute was his own conviction of what must
be the inevitable issue of that meeting that he could not conceive of
any one entertaining a fear on his behalf.

What he assumed to be anxiety on the score of the predestined victim
had irritated him in M. de Kercadiou; in Aline it filled him with a cold
anger; he argued from it that she had hardly been frank with him; that
ambition was urging her to consider with favour the suit of M. de La
Tour d'Azy