sense, indecent. He was after all the father of her husband, the grandfather of her children. One could not do a thing like that. She debated the matter with herself for hours, thinking, strangely enough, only of reasons why she should take him; and it never once occurred to her that she really had no desire not to take him. The arguments against it were simply the habit of an intermittent civil war that had endured for more than thirty years. She could not bear to leave him behind, any more than she could have borne it to leave behind the old clothes, the worn shoes, and the Bible she had given Fergus on his tenth birthday. Gramp was a fixture now, a part of the past. Without him she would feel lost and lonely.
When she told him the intoxicating news, the old man, with a wariness that placed no trust in their unreal truce, looked at her sharply and said, doubtfully, "I don't know, Hattie. I'm too old and too feeble. I think perhaps I'd better stay behind." He opposed the idea in the belief that if he opposed it she would insist upon its being carried through.
But she was firm. She would not even argue the matter. He must go with her to Paris. He would be quite as well off there as anywhere else and he would at least be where she could look after him.
"Much better off," thought Gramp, whose only desire was to see Paris again before he died. But he still maintained a resentful air as if he opposed the idea with his last breath but was far too feeble to offer any real resistance.
IN Paris the house in the Rue Raynouard was got ready for the arrival. It had begun again to take on a little of the old gaiety and sense of life, for it had passed through the depths of its depression in the days which first Lily and then Ellen had spent there alone in their sorrow. All things pass in time and so
