lgeria,
notwithstanding the prayers of Madame Desvarennes who wished to keep him
near her. He was going to finish his labors. He promised to return
in time for the wedding. The mistress, wishing to give him some
compensation, offered him the management of the mills at Jouy, saying:

"So that if you are not my son, you will be at least my partner. And if
I do not leave you all my money at my death, I can enrich you during my
life."

Pierre would not accept. He would not have it said that in wishing to
marry Micheline he had tried to make a speculation. He wished to leave
that house where he had hoped to spend his life, empty-handed, so that
no one could doubt that it was the woman he loved in Micheline and not
the heiress. He had been offered a splendid appointment in Savoy as
manager of some mines; he would find there at the same time profit and
happiness, because there were interesting scientific studies to be made
in order to enable him to carry on the work creditably. He resolved to
throw himself heart and soul into the work and seek forgetfulness in
study.

In the mansion of the Rue Saint-Dominique the marriage preparations were
carried on with great despatch. On the one side the Prince, and on
the other Cayrol, were eager for the day: the one because he saw the
realization of his ambitious dreams, the other because he loved so
madly. Serge, gracious and attentive, allowed himself to be adored by
Micheline, who was never weary of listening to and looking at him whom
she loved. It was a sort of delirium that had taken possession of the
young girl. Madame Desvarennes looked on the metamorphosis in her child
with amazement. The old Micheline, naturally indolent and cold, just
living with the indolence of an odalisque stretched on silk cushions,
had changed into a lively, loving sweetheart, with sparkling eyes and
cheerful lips. Like those lowers which the sun causes to bloom and be
fragrant, so Micheline under a look from Serge became animated and grown
handsomer.

The mother looked on with bitterness; she spoke of this transformation
in her child with ironical disdain, She was sure Micheline was not in
earnest; only a doll was capable of falling in love so foolishly with a
man for his personal beauty. For to her mind the Prince was as regards
mental power painfully deficient. No sense, dumb as soon as the
conversation took a serious turn, only able to talk dress like a woman,
or about horses like a jockey. And it