He was too well informed not to be able to distinguish between the hopes of the _emigres_ and the possible.

He knew that an abyss separated the dream from the reality.
A beseeching word uttered in a low tone by his daughter, made him turn again to the duke.
"If I purchased Sairmeuse," he answered, in a voice husky with emotion, "it was in obedience to the command of your dying aunt, and with the money which she gave me for that purpose.

If you see me here, it is only because I come to restore to you the deposit confided to my keeping." Anyone not belonging to that class of spoiled fools which surround a throne would have been deeply touched.
But the duke thought this grand act of honesty and of generosity the most simple and natural thing in the world.
"That is very well, so far as the principal is concerned," said he.

"Let us speak now of the interest.

Sairmeuse, if I remember rightly, yielded an average income of one thousand louis per year.