he old jeweler had an impulse of shame--obscure,
instinctive, and fleeting; shame of his eagerness to be informed, and
he added:

"You understand when I ask all these questions so immediately it is to
save my son disagreeables which he might not foresee. Sometimes there
are debts, embarrassing liabilities, what not! And a legatee finds
himself in an inextricable thorn bush. After all, I am not the
heir--but I think first of the little 'un."

They were accustomed to speak of Jean among themselves as the "little
one," though he was much bigger than Pierre.

Suddenly Mme. Roland seemed to wake from a dream, to recall some
remote fact, a thing almost forgotten that she had heard long ago, and
of which she was not altogether sure. She inquired doubtingly:

"Were you not saying that our poor friend Marechal had left his
fortune to my little Jean?"

"Yes, madame."

And she went on simply:

"I am much pleased to hear it; it proves that he was attached to us."

Roland had risen.

"And would you wish, my dear sir, that my son should at once sign his
acceptance?"

"No--no, M. Roland. To-morrow, at my office to-morrow, at two o'clock,
if that suits you."

"Yes, to be sure--yes, indeed, I should think so."

Then Mme. Roland, who had also risen and who was smiling after her
tears, went up to the lawyer, and laying her hand on the back of his
chair while she looked at him with the pathetic eyes of a grateful
mother, she said:

"And now for that cup of tea, Monsieur Lecanu?"

"Now I will accept it with pleasure, madame."

The maid, on being summoned, brought in first some dry biscuits in
deep tin boxes, those crisp, insipid English cakes which seem to have
been made for a parrot's beak, and soldered into metal cases for a
voyage round the world. Next she fetched some little gray linen
doilies, folded square, those tea-napkins which in thrifty families
never get washed. A third time she came in with the sugar basin and
cups; then she departed to heat the water. They sat waiting.

No one could talk; they had too much to think about and nothing to
say. Mme. Roland alone attempted a few commonplace remarks. She gave
an account of the fishing excursion, and sang the praises of the
_Pearl_ and of Mme. Rosemilly.

"Charming! charming!" the lawyer said again and again.

Roland, leaning against the marble mantelshelf as if it were winter
and the fire burning, with his hands in his pockets and his lips
puckered for a whi