“I think you may conquer me,” said she.

“What happiness for me!”

The servant came in to tell us that dinner was ready.

“Interruptions are often extremely inconvenient,” said I, as I offered her my arm, feeling quite sure that she had not lost the significance of my last words, for women find a meaning for everything.

We were just sitting down to table when Clairmont announced my daughter and Madame Rancour.

“Tell them that I am at dinner, and that I shall not be disengaged till three o’clock.”

Just as my man was leaving the room to carry back my answer, Sophie rushed in and knelt before me, choking with sobs.

This was too much for me, and raising her I took her on my knees, saying I knew what she had come for, and that for love of her I would do it.

Passing from grief to joy the dear child kissed me, calling me her father, and at last made me weep myself.

“Dine with us, dear Sophie,” said I, “I shall be the more likely to do what you wish.”

She ran from my arms to embrace Pauline, who was weeping out of sympathy, and we all dined happily together.  Sophie begged me to give Madame Rancour some dinner.

“It shall be so if you please, but only for your sake, for that woman Rancour deserves that I should leave her standing at the door to punish her for her impertinence to me when I came to London.”

The child amused us in an astonishing way all dinnertime, Pauline keeping her ears open and not saying a word, so surprised was she to hear a child of her age talk in a way that would have excited attention in a woman of twenty.  Although perfectly respectful she condemned her mother’s conduct, and said that she was unfortunate in being obliged to give her a blind obedience.

“I would wager that you don’t love her much.”

“I respect, but I cannot love her, for I am always afraid.  I never see her without fearing her.”

“Why do you weep, then, at her fate?”

“I pity her, and her family still more, and the expressions she used in sending me to you were very affecting.”

“What were these expressions?”

“‘Go,’ said she, ’kneel before him, for you and you alone can soften his heart.’”

“Then you knelt before me because your mother told you to do so.”

“Yes, for if I had followed my own inclination I should have rushed to your arms.”

“You answer well.  But are you sure of persuading me?”

“No, for one can never be sure of anything; but I have good hopes of success, remembering what you told me at the Hague.  My mother told me that I was only three then, but I know I was five.  She it was who told me not to look at you when I spoke to you, but fortunately you made her remove her prohibition.  Everybody says that you are my father, and at the Hague she told me so herself; but here she is always dinning it into my ears that I am the daughter of M. de Monpernis.”