ings and anxieties have turned me as
grey as a badger."

"Your wife is still young and beautiful, I hear," said Madame de la
Mariniere. "And your hair, cousin, is the only thing that proves you
more than twenty. At any rate, you have not lost a young man's genius
for paying compliments."

"My compliments are simple truth, as they always were, even before I
lived in more plain-spoken countries than this," said the Comte. "And
now let me ask your kindness for this little eldest girl of mine--the
eldest child that I have here--you know Georges is with the army."

"I know," said Madame de la Mariniere.

Her look had softened, though it was still grave and a little distant.
It was with a manner perfectly courteous, but not in the least
affectionate, that she drew Helene towards her and kissed her on the
cheek. "She is more like you than her mother," she said. "I am charmed
to make your acquaintance, my dear."

Words, words! Angelot knew his mother, and knew that whatever pretty
speeches politeness might claim, she did not, and never could rejoice in
the return of the cousins to Lancilly. But it amused and astonished him
to notice the Comte's manner to his mother. Did it please her? he
wondered. Gratitude to his father was right and necessary, but did she
care for these airs of past and present devotion to herself, on the part
of a man who had outraged all her notions of loyalty? It began to dawn
on Angelot that he knew little of the world and its ways.

Standing in the background, he watched those four, and a more
interesting five minutes he had never yet known. These were shadows
become real: politics, family and national, turned into persons.

There stood his father beside the man to whose advantage he had devoted
his life; whom he had loved as that kind of friend who sticks closer
than a brother, almost with the adoration of a faithful dog, ever since
the boys of the castle and of the old manor played together about the
woods of La Mariniere and Lancilly.

They were a contrast, those two. Urbain was short and broad, with quick
eyes, a clever brow, a strong, good-tempered mouth and chin. He was
ugly, and far from distinguished: Joseph had carried off the good looks
and left the brains for him. Herve de Sainfoy was tall, slight, elegant;
his face was handsome, fair, and sleepy, the lower part weak and
irresolute. A beard, if fashion had allowed it, would have become him
well. His expression was amiable, his smile c