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“I should like to see you married,” his mother said to him one day.

“Yes, but how about the child?” “Don’t worry yourself about that. I have picked out for you a young girl of good family but poor, who adores you. I have introduced Robert to her, and they are already great friends. Besides, the first year I will keep the darling with me. Afterwards, we shall see.”

“And–the mother?” hesitated the poet, reddening a little, for it was the first time that he had spoken of Irma to his mother.

“Pooh!” replied the old dowager, laughing, “we will settle something handsome on her, and I am quite sure she will soon be married also. The bourgeois of Paris is not particular.”

That very evening, d’Athis, who had never been desperately in love with his mistress, spoke to her of these arrangements and found her as usual–submissive and apparently docile to his will. But the next day, when he returned home, he found that mother and child had flown. Finally, they were discovered in a wretched hut on the borders of the Forest of Rambouillet, with Irma’s father; and when the poet arrived he found his son, his young prince, in his velvet and lace, jumping on the old poacher’s knee, playing with his pipe, running after the hens, delighted to shake his fair curls in the fresh air. D’Athis, though much upset by emotion, pretended to laugh the affair off, and wished at once to take his fugitives home with him. But Irma did not see the matter in the same light. She had been dismissed; she took her child with her. What more natural? Nothing short of the poet’s promise that he would give up all thoughts of marriage decided her to return. Moreover, she made her own conditions. It had been too long forgotten that she was Robert’s mother. Always to disappear and hide whenever Madame d’Athis appeared, was no longer possible for her. The child was growing too old for her to be exposed to such humiliations before him. It was therefore agreed that as Madame d’Athis had refused to be brought into contact with her son’s mistress, she should no longer go to his house, but that the child should be brought to her every day.

Then began for the old grandmother a regular torture. Every day fresh pretexts were made to keep the child away; he had coughed, it was too cold, it was raining. Then came his walks, rides, gymnastic exercises. The poor old lady never saw her grandson. At first she tried complaining to d’Athis; but women alone have the secret of carrying on these little warfares. Their ruses remain invisible, like the hidden stitches which catch back the folds and laces of their dress. The poet could see nothing of it; and the saddened grandmother spent her life in waiting for her darling’s visit, in watching for him in the street, when he walked out with a servant; and these furtive kisses and hasty glances only augmented her maternal passion without satisfying it.

During this time, Irma Salle–always by means of the child–succeeded in gaining ground in the father’s heart. She was the recognized head of the house now, received visitors, gave parties, settled herself as a woman who means to remain where she is. Still she took care to say from time to time to the little Vicomte, before his father: “Do you remember the chickens at Grandpapa Salle’s? Shall we go back and see them?”

And by this everlasting threat of departure, she paved the way to the end she had in view–marriage.

It took her five years to become a Comtesse, but at length she gained her point. One day, the poet came in fear and trembling to announce to his mother that he had decided to marry his mistress, and the old lady, instead of being indignant hailed the calamity as a deliverance, seeing but one thing in the marriage; the possibility of once more entering her son’s door, and of freely indulging her affection for her little Robert.