"Oh, mademoiselle! This resurrection ... the elixir ... the hidden diamonds!"
"I don't say that it isn't," said Dorothy, smiling. "The old fellow does seem to me a trifle cracked. Nevertheless the letter he has written to us is certainly authentic; at the end of two centuries we have come, as he foresaw that we should, to the rendezvous he appointed, and above all we are certainly members of the same family."
"I think that we might start embracing all over again, mademoiselle."
"I'm sure, if our ancestor permits it, I shall be charmed," said Dorothy.
"But he does permit it."
"We'll go and ask him."
Maître Delarue protested:
"You'll go without me, mademoiselle. Understand once and for all that I am not going to see whether Jean-Pierre-Augustin de la Roche, Marquis de Beaugreval, is still alive at the age of two hundred and sixty-two years!"
"But he isn't as old as all that, Maître Delarue. We need not count the two hundred years' sleep. Then it's only a matter of sixty-two years; that's quite normal. His friend, Monsieur de Fontenelle, as the Marquis predicted and thanks to an elixir of life, lived to be a hundred."
"In fact you do not believe in it, mademoiselle?"