"Wages!" she cried. "Do not imagine me deceived by these good-natured bourgeois, nor by your desire to spare me. Secretary, indeed! Do they fancy me a fool? You are a clerk."
"I am," he said; "but that is not now of importance. He has said that he must go or I must go."
"Then let him go. You must not disobey me, René."
"Mother," he said, "these people have, God knows why, found us a home, and covered us with obligations never possible to be repaid. Here at last comes a chance—and you know our old French saying."
"Yes, yes, I know. But any clerk could go. It is—oh, my son!—that I should miss you day and night."
"Any clerk could not go, maman. It asks this thing—a man not afraid. No timid clerk can go. Do not you see, maman?"
"He will think you afraid if you stay?"
"Oh, mother, do understand this man better! He is a gentleman—of—of as good a race as ours, a soldier of distinction in the war. He will not think me afraid; but others may."
"Is there danger, my son?"