“At once.”
“Monseigneur!”—he held his hands out across the table—“is there nothing in the past that can prevent you from parting so from me—nothing?”
“The present kills the past. You choose to forget your blazon, your quality, your name—you are then nothing to me. I shall forget my eldest son as he has forgotten me.”
Luc answered feverishly, desperately—
“Take care, Monseigneur—you will never be able to undo what you do now—never. Think of it—what a difference it would make to me if I had a kind remembrance of you to take with me into the last endeavour of my life.”
“Go—leave my presence. I do not wish to hear your voice.”
“My father!”
“Go!”
“Will you hear me?”
“Hear you! What do you think it is to me to hear my son speak as you have spoken?”