that I can't live without him--that I could not give him up!"

Kreutzer smiled--not with an air of triumph--the discomfiture of the
unhappy woman did not make him feel the least exultant. It was pure
happiness that made him smile--joy to think that Anna's wedding would
not, after all, be shadowed by her husband's sorrow for the loss of
mother-love.

"Then Madame will yield?" he cried. "Madame will make the dear young
people happy?"

"Upon one condition. Positively only upon one condition."

"What is that, Madame?"

"Your daughter, really, is charming."

"There I agree with you."

"She is wonderfully well-bred--I do not understand it. I could pass
her, anywhere, for a distinguished foreigner--a foreigner of noble
birth."

The father of the subject of her praise smiled gravely. "That is very
true. She will--what you call it?--look the part."

"But to be quite frank," the lady went on "you, yourself, are quite
impossible, Herr Kreutzer. Quite impossible, I must assure you."

"I, impossible? I--you say that I am quite impossible?"