seconded him less and less, had insisted on
Blaise and Charlotte installing themselves in the little pavilion, in
order that the former's services might at all times be available. And
Constance, ever on her knees before her son, could in this matter
only obey respectfully. She evinced boundless faith in the vastness of
Maurice's intellect. His studies had proved fairly satisfactory; if he
was somewhat slow and heavy, and had frequently been delayed by youthful
illnesses, he had, nevertheless, diligently plodded on. As he was
far from talkative, his mother gave out that he was a reflective,
concentrated genius, who would astonish the world by actions, not by
speech. Before he was even fifteen she said of him, in her adoring way:
"Oh! he has a great mind." And, naturally enough, she only acknowledged
Blaise to be a necessary lieutenant, a humble assistant, one whose hand
would execute the sapient young master's orders. The latter, to her
thinking, was now so strong and so handsome, and he was so quickly
reviving the business compromised by the father's slow collapse, that
surely he must be on the high-road to prodigious wealth, to that final
great triumph, indeed, of which she had been dreaming so proudly, so
egotistically, for so many years.

But all at once the thunderbolt fell. It was not without some hesitation
that Blaise had agreed to make the little pavilion his home, for he knew
that there was an idea of reducing him to the status of a mere piece
of machinery. But at the birth of his little girl he bravely decided
to accept the proposal, and to engage in the battle of life even as his
father had engaged in it, mindful of the fact that he also might in time
have a large family. But it so happened that one morning, when he went
up to the house to ask Maurice for some instructions, he heard from
Constance herself that the young man had spent a very bad night, and
that she had therefore prevailed on him to remain in bed. She did not
evince any great anxiety on the subject; the indisposition could only
be due to a little fatigue. Indeed, for a week past the two cousins had
been tiring themselves out over the delivery of a very important order,
which had set the entire works in motion. Besides, on the previous day
Maurice, bareheaded and in perspiration, had imprudently lingered in a
draught in one of the sheds while a machine was being tested.

That evening he was seized with intense fever, and Boutan was hastily
sum