“She could not help staying with them, otherwise it would have been a show of hostility quite out of place. Parents’ enmities, I hope, form no necessary part of children’s inheritances.”
“Mother, what you are now saying is contrary to all poetical tradition. Look at Romeo and Juliet. What would become of literature were there no hereditary enmities? They form part and parcel of romantic stock-in-trade. The deuce! We must not diminish it, as it is becoming less and less quite fast enough!”
Baradier was not listening to his son; he remained still plunged in his own reflections. At last he murmured—
“What has she come for? Why has Lichtenbach permitted her to come?”
“Shall I go and ask her?” asked Marcel.
“Try to be serious, Marcel,” exclaimed the banker. “This is no matter for jest.”
“Oh, I know that well enough. I wonder what it is that upsets you so much? Here is my mother as pale as death, and yourself in a fever-heat, and all because a young girl has come to sympathize with her school-mate! There is something extraordinary going on.”
Baradier glanced sideways at his son, and replied in a tone of irritation—
“Don’t be such a fool, Marcel. You are incapable of understanding!”
Marcel bowed, in mock humility.