"You don't know what an impossible thing you are asking," replied Aymar, his head turned away.
"You have done more impossible," pleaded Laurent. "You went and asked a favour of your enemy . . . for the sake of another. Yet you will not take a gift from a friend—though that, too, is for the sake of others."
There was a long pause. Sarrasin had a fresh access of snapping, and in the Aven a fish actually jumped.
"Perhaps I might . . . take it as a loan," said Aymar at length with, it was clear, the utmost difficulty.
"And sell Sessignes to repay it!—Oh, Aymar, it's not for yourself! I . . . I think it's for me!"
Another silence. Aymar's head was still turned away; he was digging one hand into the grass farther than Laurent had ever done. Did it mean that he was going to accept? Oh, if only it might be!
And then Laurent became aware of someone approaching the stream.
"Here is your cousin!" he exclaimed in surprise. Aymar looked up, and they both scrambled to their feet.
"Eulalie de Morsan has just arrived, Aymar," Laurent heard Avoye say, as Aymar went over the bridge towards her. "She is going to stay the night. I came to tell you; Grand'mère is asking for you."
On this news Aymar made no comment; he merely thanked its bearer for her trouble. And as Laurent, inwardly cursing the moment chosen by Mme de Morsan for her arrival, went up to the house with the cousins, he learnt that the lady was on her way home from Aix-les-Bains or somewhere, and had elected to pay them a visit en passant. His annoyance was, however, a little dispelled on hearing that she had brought with her the news that Paris had capitulated to the Allies three days ago.