“I began to breathe more freely. ‘But is this that you tell me really true?’
“‘You still doubt? So much the better. If the most spirituelle woman of the century has believed in the immortality of the man, what of the others? I give myself, as you know better than anybody, for some hundred years of age. My son, in fifty years’ time, will be able to double that. I have only verbal traditions, he will have written traditions. I shall bequeath him a great number of secrets, and many family histories. It is certain that there will not be wanting many persons who, having seen me in my early life, will take him to be me, as you have taken me for my father. Only, our fortune having accumulated very largely, I shall wish him to bear a title. He will be called the Count de St Germain.’
“‘I am overwhelmed with astonishment,’ I said. ‘And what is the use of this ruse? Why perpetuate such a resemblance from father to son?’
“‘You ask me that?’ he exclaimed. ‘Think what renown and prestige it gives. Think of the blind confidence reposed in one who has discovered for himself the secret of not dying. Do you not know that the faith of a sick person in his physician is frequently the cause of his cure? Have regard to the moral and mental powers, and the physical ones will most surely feel the influence. You yourself are a proof of this.’
“‘I?’
“‘Did you not remain beautiful till you were eighty years old?’
“‘That is true.’
“‘Do you know what was in those bottles which were to render your beauty of such long duration? They contained pure water.’
“‘Is it possible?’
“‘Yes, Mademoiselle, pure water, mixed with a few drops of an innocuous chemical drug to keep it incorruptible, and to slightly colour it. The experiment succeeded. My father had no serious intention of making you think you had made a compact with the devil. Just now, in the idea that you recognised me, you received a terrible shock. Did he not say that the hour when you should see him again, you would not have three days to live?’