He took her in his arms and, lifting her veil, kissed her on the lips.

A little frightened in that vast, unknown hall, embarrassed by the look of strange things, she drew the black tulle to her chin.

“Here!  You can not think of it.”

He said they were alone.

“Alone?  And the man with terrible moustaches who opened the door?”

He smiled: 

“That is Fusellier, my father’s former servant.  He and his wife take charge of the house.  Do not be afraid.  They remain in their box.  You shall see Madame Fusellier; she is inclined to familiarity.  I warn you.”

“My friend, why has Monsieur Fusellier, a janitor, moustaches like a Tartar?”

“My dear, nature gave them to him.  I am not sorry that he has the air of a sergeant-major and gives me the illusion of being a country neighbor.”

Seated on the corner of the divan, he drew her to his knees and gave to her kisses which she returned.

She rose quickly.

“Show me the other rooms.  I am curious.  I wish to see everything.”

He escorted her to the second story.  Aquarelles by Philippe Dechartre covered the walls of the corridor.  He opened the door and made her enter a room furnished with white mahogany: 

It was his mother’s room.  He kept it intact in its past.  Uninhabited for nine years, the, room had not the air of being resigned to its solitude.  The mirror waited for the old lady’s glance, and on the onyx clock a pensive Sappho was lonely because she did not hear the noise of the pendulum.

There were two portraits on the walls.  One by Ricard represented Philippe Dechartre, very pale, with rumpled hair, and eyes lost in a romantic dream.  The other showed a middle-aged woman, almost beautiful in her ardent slightness.  It was Madame Philippe Dechartre.

“My poor mother’s room is like me,” said Jacques; “it remembers.”

“You resemble your mother,” said Therese; “you have her eyes.  Paul Vence told me she adored you.”

“Yes,” he replied, smilingly.  “My mother was excellent, intelligent, exquisite, marvellously absurd.  Her madness was maternal love.  She did not give me a moment of rest.  She tormented herself and tormented me.”

Therese looked at a bronze figure by Carpeaux, placed on the chiffonier.

“You recognize,” said Dechartre, “the Prince Imperial by his ears, which are like the wings of a zephyr, and which enliven his cold visage.  This bronze is a gift of Napoleon III.  My parents went to Compiegne.  My father, while the court was at Fontainebleau, made the plan of the castle, and designed the gallery.  In the morning the Emperor would come, in his frock-coat, and smoking his meerschaum pipe, to sit near him like a penguin on a rock.  At that time I went to day-school.  I listened to his stories at table, and I have not forgotten them.  The Emperor stayed there, peaceful and quiet, interrupting his long silence with few words