“Oh! dear me! how vexatious!”
“What is the matter?” asked Djalma, starting from the gloomy silence in which he had been plunged for some minutes.
“Alas! my dear prince!” replied Rodin, “the most vulgar and puerile accident may sometimes cause the greatest inconvenience. I have forgotten or lost my spectacles. Now, in this twilight, with the very poor eyesight that years of labor have left me, it will be absolutely impossible for me to read this most important letter—and an immediate answer is expected—most simple and categorical—a yes or a no. Times presses; it is really most annoying. If,” added Rodin, laying great stress on his words, without looking at Djalma, but so as the prince might remark it; “if only some one would render me the service to read it for me; but there is no one—no—one!”
“Father,” said Djalma, obligingly, “shall I read it for you. When I have finished it, I shall forget what I have read.”
“You?” cried Rodin, as if the proposition of the Indian had appeared to him extravagant and dangerous; “it is impossible, prince, for you to read this letter.”
“Then excuse my having offered,” said Djalma mildly.
“And yet,” resumed Rodin, after a moment’s reflection, and as if speaking to himself, “why not?”
And he added, addressing Djalma: “Would you really be so obliging, my dear prince? I should not have ventured to ask you this service.”
So saying, Rodin delivered the letter to Djalma, who read aloud as follows: “‘Your visit this morning to Saint-Dizier House can only be considered, from what I hear, as a new act of aggression on your part.
“‘Here is the last proposition I have to make. It may be as fruitless as the step I took yesterday, when I called upon you in the Rue Clovis.