“L’heure exquise,” murmured Madame Mineur.  Berenice wandered down the road and Hubert helped her mother to the wall, where he sat beside her and looked at her.  He was a big, muscular man with shaven cheeks, dark eyes, and plenty of tumbled hair, in which flecks of gray were showing.  He had been a classmate of Theophile Mineur, for whose talents or personality he had never betrayed much liking.  But one day at a dejeuner, which had prolonged itself until evening, Mineur insisted on his old friend—­the Burgundy was old, too—­accompanying him to Villiers-le-Bel, and not without a motive.  He knew Falcroft to be rich, and he would not be sorry to see his capricious and mischievous stepdaughter well settled.  But Falcroft immediately paid court to Madame Mineur, and Berenice had to content herself with watching him and making fun to her stepfather of the American painter’s height and gestures.  The visit had been repeated.  Berenice was amused by a dinner en ville and a theatre party, and then Hubert Falcroft became a friend of the household.  When Mineur was away painting, the visits were not interrupted.

“Listen,” said Madame Mineur; “I wish to speak with you seriously, my dear friend.”  She made a movement as if to place her hand on his shoulder, but his expression—­his face was in the light—­caused her to transfer her plump fingers to her coiffure, which she touched dexterously.  Hubert was disappointed.

“I am listening,” he answered; “is it a sermon, or consent—­to that portrait?  Come, give in—­Elaine.”  He had never called her by this name before, and he anxiously awaited the result.  But she did not relax her grave attitude.

“You must know, Monsieur Falcroft, what anxieties we undergo about Berenice.  She is too wild for a French girl, too wild for her age—­”

“Oh, let her enjoy her youth,” he interrupted.

“Alas! that youth will be soon a thing of the past,” she sighed.  “Berenice is past eighteen, and her father and I must consider her future.  Figure to yourself—­she dislikes young men, eligible or not, and you are the only man she tolerates.”

“And I am hopelessly ineligible,” he laughingly said.

“Why?” asked the mother, quietly.

“Why!  Do you know that I am nearing forty?  Do you see the pepper and salt in my hair?  After one passes twoscore it is time to think of the past, not of the future.  I am over the brow of the hill; I see the easy decline of the road—­it doesn’t seem as long as when I climbed the other half.”  He smiled, threw back his strong shoulders, and inhaled a huge breath of air.

“Truly you are childish,” she said; “you are at the best part of your life, of your career.  Yes, Theophile, my husband, who is so chary in his praise, said that you would go far if you cared.”  Her low, warm voice, with its pleading inflections, thrilled him.  He took her by the wrist.

“And would it please you, if I went far?” She trembled.