ou hear?--the first to pronounce your
name. As you had cured my mother, I had the right to praise you. With a
nature like hers, she would not have understood if I had not done it; she
would have believed me ungrateful. I spoke of your book on the diseases
of the spinal cord, which was quite natural; and as she manifested a
desire to read it, I offered to lend it to her."

"Was that natural?"

"With any but Madame Dammauville, no; but she is not frivolous. I took
the book to her two days ago, and she has just told me that, after
reading it, she has decided to send for you."

"I shall certainly not go; she has her own physician."

"Do not imagine that I have come to ask you to pay her a visit; all is
arranged with Monsieur Balzajette, who will write to you or see you, I do
not know which."

"That will be very extraordinary on the part of Balzajette!"

"Perhaps you judge him harshly. When Madame Dammauville spoke to him of
you he did not raise the smallest objection; on the contrary, he praised
you. He says that you are one of the rare young men in whom one may have
confidence. These are his own words that Madame Dammauville told me."

"What do I care for the opinion of this old beast!"

"I am explaining how it happens that you are called into consultation; it
is not because I spoke of you, but because you have inspired Monsieur
Balzajette with confidence. However stupid he may be, he is just to you,
and knows your value."

It was come then, the time for the meeting that he did not wish to
believe possible; and it was brought about in such a way that he did not
see how he could escape it. He might refuse Phillis; but Balzajette? A
colleague called him in consultation, and why should he not go? Had he
foreseen this blow he would have left Paris until the trial was over, but
he was taken unawares. What could he say to justify a sudden absence? He
had no mother or brothers who might send for him, and with whom he would
be obliged to remain. Besides, he wished to go to court; and since his
testimony would carry considerable weight with the jury, it was his duty
to be present on account of Florentin. It would be a contemptible
cowardice to fail in this duty, and more, it would be an imprudence. In
the eyes of the world he must appear to have nothing to fear, and this
assurance, this confidence in himself, was one of the conditions of his
safety. Now, if he went to court, and from every point of view it was
impossible