"How right you are!"
"Where souls have infinite shades of colour! A country that has the charm of a woman one loves, as it were a still more beautiful Alsace."
Both had risen, and M. Ulrich drew his nephew towards him, and pressed that fervent head against his breast.
"Frenchman!" said he, "Frenchman to the marrow of your bones, and in every drop of blood in your veins! My poor boy!"
The young man continued, his head still resting on the older man's shoulder:
"That is why I cannot live over yonder—across the Rhine—and why I shall live here!"
"Well might I say 'poor boy'!" answered M. Ulrich. "All is changed—alas! Even here in your home. You will suffer, Jean, with a nature like yours. I understand everything now—everything."
Then letting his nephew go:
"How glad I am I came to-night. Sit down there quite close to me. We have so much to say to each other—Jean, my Jean!"
They sat down side by side, happy, on the sofa. M. Ulrich stroked his pointed beard into its habitual well-groomed neatness. He recovered from his emotion, and said: