The mother and daughter exchanged a strangely meaning glance.
“Why, my little mother, should you ask today rather than yesterday? Why have you allowed me to imagine a doubt?”
“If it were to part you from me forever, would you marry him all the same?”
“I could give him up without dying of grief.”
“Then you do not love him, my dear,” said the mother, kissing her daughter’s forehead.
“But why, my dear mamma, are you playing the grand inquisitor?”
“I wanted to see if you cared to be married without being madly in love with your husband.”
“I like him.”
“You are right; he is a Count, and, between us, he shall be made peer of France. But there will be difficulties.”
“Difficulties between people who care for each other?—No! Peas-blossom, my dear mother, is too well planted there,” and she pointed to her heart with a pretty gesture, “to make the smallest objection; I am sure of that.”
“But if it were not so?”
“I should utterly forget him.”
“Well said! You are a Casa-Real.—But though he is madly in love with you, if certain matters were discussed which do not immediately concern him, but which he would have to make the best of for your sake and mine, Natalie, heh? If, without proceeding in the least too far, a little graciousness of manner might turn the scale?—A mere nothing, you know, a word? Men are like that—they can resist sound argument and yield to a glance.”
“I understand! A little touch just to make Favorite leap the gate,” said Natalie, with a flourish as if she were whipping a horse.
“My darling, I do not wish you to do anything approaching to invitation. We have traditions of old Castilian pride which will never allow us to go too far. The Count will be informed of my situation.”
“What situation?”
“You would not understand if I told you.—Well, if after seeing you in all your beauty his eyes should betray the slightest hesitancy—and I shall watch him—at that instant I should break the whole thing off; I should turn everything into money, leave Bordeaux, and go to Douai, to the Claës, who, after all, are related to us through the Temnincks. Then I would find a French peer for your husband, even if I had to take refuge in a convent and give you my whole fortune.”
“My dear mother, what can I do to hinder such misfortunes?” said Natalie.
“I never saw you lovelier, my child! Be a little purposely attractive, and all will be well.”
Madame Evangelista left Natalie pensive, and went to achieve a toilet which allowed her to stand a comparison with her daughter. If Natalie was to fascinate Paul, must not she herself fire the enthusiasm of her champion Solonet?
The mother and daughter were armed for conquest when Paul arrived with the bouquet which for some months past had been his daily offering to Natalie. Then they sat chatting while awaiting the lawyers.
This day was to Paul the first skirmish in the long and weary warfare of married life. It is necessary, therefore, to review the forces on either side, to place the belligerents, and to define the field on which they are to do battle.
To second him in a struggle of which he did not in the least appreciate the consequences, Paul had nobody but his old lawyer Mathias. They were each to be surprised unarmed by an unexpected manoeuvre, driven by an enemy whose plans were laid, and compelled to act without having time for reflection. What man but would have failed even with Cujas and Barthole to back him? How should he fear perfidy when everything seemed so simple and natural?
What could Mathias do single-handed against Madame Evangelista, Solonet, and Natalie, especially when his client was a lover who would go over to the enemy as soon as his happiness should seem to be imperiled? Paul was already entangling himself by making the pretty speeches customary with lovers, to which his passion gave an emphasis of immense value in the eyes of Madame Evangelista, who was leading him on to commit himself.
The matrimonial condottieri, who were about to do battle for their clients, and whose personal prowess would prove decisive in this solemn contest—the two notaries—represented the old and the new schools, the old and the new style of notary.
Maître Mathias was a worthy old man of sixty-nine, proud of twenty years’ practice in his office. His broad, gouty feet were shod in shoes with silver buckles, and were an absurd finish to legs so thin, with such prominent knee-bones, that when he crossed his feet they looked like the crossbones on a tombstone. His lean thighs, lost in baggy black knee-breeches with silver buckles, seemed to bend under the weight of a burly stomach and the round shoulders characteristic of men who live in an office! a huge ball, always clothed in a green coat with square-cut skirts, which no one remembered ever to have seen new. His hair, tightly combed back and powdered, was tied in a rat’s tail that always tucked itself away between the collar of his coat and that of his flowered white waistcoat. With his bullet head, his face as red as a vine-leaf, his blue eyes, trumpet-nose, thick lips, and double chin, the dear little man, wherever he went, aroused the laughter so liberally bestowed by the French on the grotesque creations which Nature sometimes allows herself and Art thinks it funny to exaggerate, calling them caricatures.
But in Maître Mathias the mind had triumphed over the body, the qualities of the soul had vanquished the eccentricity of his appearance. Most of the townsfolk treated him with friendly respect and deference full of esteem. The notary’s voice won all hearts by the eloquent ring of honesty. His only cunning consisted in going straight to the point, oversetting every evil thought by the directness of his questions. His sharply observant eye, and his long experience of business, gave him that spirit of divination which allowed him to read consciences and discern the most
