"You pain me by refusing," said Oliver. "As a connoisseur, monseigneur, as a collector—"
"Ah!" said the marquis, "there you touch me again. As a collector—well, then, I accept it," and he slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. "Embrace me, Oliver!"
Oliver's mother was long past wondering at anything, or else she might have thought it a little strange to see Oliver—Oliver, the son of Jean Munier, the tailor—clasped in the arms of Monseigneur the Marquis of Flourens.
The marquis released Oliver from his embrace and sat down again. "But tell me," said he, "you and madame, you then live here?"
He looked around, and Oliver's eyes followed his. It certainly was a poor house for one who could empty half a million livres' worth of diamonds upon a table.
"For the present," said Oliver, "yes. We have been very poor, my mother and I." He paused. The marquis's eyes were resting intently upon him, and he felt that the other waited for further explanation. He had already arranged a story, but now that the time had come to tell it, his courage almost failed. "My uncle," said he at last, "came back from America about a year ago, and found us very poor—my mother and me. He was rich." Again he paused for a moment, and then continued: "He came from Brazil, where he was the owner of a diamond mine."
"But this uncle of yours," said the marquis, "where is he now?"
"He is dead," said Oliver. "He is in heaven."
Oliver's mother heard what he said through all the buzzing of the thoughts in her head. "So, then," thought she to herself, "my brother-in-law is dead, is he?"