[CHAPTER XXIII.]
A PROOF?
Monsieur Dalize took his friend Roger by the arm, and they walked together down one of the solitary pathways of the park. When they were some distance off from Madame Dalize and the children, Monsieur Dalize stopped, looked his friend squarely in the eyes, and said, in a faltering tone,—
"Then you still think it? You have retained that foolish idea? You think that Paul——?"
"Yes," interrupted Monsieur Roger, in a firm voice, and without avoiding the eyes of his friend, "I think it, and more than that." Then, lowering his head, in a softened tone, but without hesitation, he said, "I think that Paul is my son."
Monsieur Dalize looked at his friend with a feeling of real pity.
"Your son?" he said. "You think that Paul is your son? And on what do you found this improbable, this impossible belief? Upon a likeness which your sorrowful spirit persists in tracing. Truly, my dear Roger, you grieve me. I thought you had a firmer as well as a clearer head. To whom could you confide such absurd ideas?"
"To you, in the first place, as I have already done," said Monsieur Roger, gravely. "The resemblance which you doubt, and which, in fact, seems impossible to prove, is not a resemblance which I see between Paul and George, but between Paul and her who was his mother; of that I am sure."