Certainly not marriage. He could not bear the idea of sentencing himself to a life of miserable conjugal servitude. He had no stomach for the odious coexistence of two human beings yoked together for life and knowing each other so well that not a word spoken by one was unpredictable by the other, not a gesture unanticipated and not a thought or a wish or an opinion not easily guessed in advance. It was his belief that people were interesting to the extent that they were unknown, hidden and still mysterious. He would have needed a kind of non-family, in which he lived only part of his life. Once again the thought of his son came to haunt him.

He had been thinking about him constantly for a year now and the irresistible desire to see and get to know him had only increased with the passage of time. He had been born as the result of a dramatic love-affair when the Baron himself was young. The child had been sent to the south of France and brought up near Marseille without ever knowing who his father was.

The latter had paid first for a nurse, second for his education, then for the period during which he sowed his wild oats, and finally had sent sufficient money for the boy to make a reasonable sort of marriage. A discreet notary had acted as intermediary and revealed nothing throughout this period.

The Baron de Mordiane knew only that someone with his blood in his veins was living on the outskirts of Marseille; that he was apparently bright and well brought-up; that he had married the daughter of an architect entrepreneur in whose footsteps he had followed. He had also apparently made quite a lot of money.

Why not go, incognito, and see this stranger son of his, just to see what he was like and make sure that, if need be, the Baron had an acceptable sort of family he could relax with.

He had distributed largesse in the past. The generous wedding cheque had been gratefully accepted so the Baron did not anticipate any proud desire for independence on the part of his son. This idea, this desire of his to go to the south of France came to him every day now. It was beginning to get under his skin and become a real obsession. A curious wave of self-pity washed over him as he thought now of the warm, happy home close to the sea. He could picture his young and lovely daughter-in-law ready to welcome him; grandchildren, their arms outstretched, running to meet him; and a son to remind him of the brief, sweet affair of his long-distant youth. His only regret was that he had already given so much money. Since his son had used it wisely to make more, the Baron would seem now less of a benefactor than he would like to appear.