t young women, who looked at me with the bold eyes
of prostitutes. In their petticoats and morning wrappers, with bare
arms, with coal black hair twisted up onto the nape of their neck, with
embroidered Oriental slippers which showed their ankles and silk
stockings, they looked like the immoral figures of some symbolical
painting, by the side of the dying man. Between the easy-chair and the
bed, there was a table covered with a white cloth, on which two plates,
two glasses, two forks and two knives, were waiting for the cheese
omelette which had been ordered some time before of Melani.

"My uncle said in weak, almost breathless but clear voice: 'Good
morning, my child: it is rather late in the day to come and see me; our
acquaintance will not last long.' I stammered out: 'It was not my fault,
uncle,' ... and he replied: 'No; I know that. It is your father and
mother's fault more than yours.... How are they?' 'Pretty well, thank
you. When they heard that you were ill, they sent me to ask after you.'
'Ah! Why did they not come themselves?'

"I looked up at the two girls and said gently: 'It is not their fault if
they could not come, uncle. But it would be difficult for my father, and
impossible for my mother to come in here....' The old man did not reply,
but raised his hand towards mine, and I took the pale, cold hand and
kept it in my own.

"The door opened, Melani came in with the omelette and put it on the
table, and the two girls immediately sat down in front of their plates
and began to eat without taking their eyes off me. Then I said: 'Uncle,
it would be a great pleasure for my mother to embrace you.' 'I also ...'
he murmured, 'should like....' He said no more, and I could think of
nothing to propose to him, and nothing more was heard except the noise
of the plates and that vague movement of eating mouths.

"Now the Abbe, who was listening behind the door, seeing our
embarrassment, and thinking we had won the game, thought the time had
come to interpose, and showed himself. My uncle was so stupefied at that
apparition, that at first he remained motionless; but then he opened his
mouth as if he meant to swallow up the priest, and shouted to him in a
strong, deep, furious voice: 'What are you doing here?'

"The Abbe, who was used to difficult situations came further in the
room, murmuring: 'I have come in your sister's name, Monsieur le
Marquis; she has sent me.... She would be so happy, Monsieur....'

"But th