At this point Mme. des Grassins was announced. The banker’s wife was smarting under a grievous disappointment, and thirsted for revenge.
“Mademoiselle …” she began. “Oh! M. le Curé is here. … I will say no more then. I came to speak about some matters of business, but I see you are deep in something else.”
“Madame,” said the curé, “I leave the field to you.”
“Oh! M. le Curé, pray come back again; I stand in great need of your help just now.”
“Yes, indeed, my poor child!” said Mme. des Grassins.
“What do you mean?” asked Eugénie and the curé both together.
“Do you suppose that I haven’t heard that your cousin has come back and is going to marry Mlle. d’Aubrion? A woman doesn’t go about with her wits in her pocket.”
Eugénie was silent, there was a red flush on her face, but she made up her mind at once that henceforward no one should learn anything from her, and looked as impenetrable as her father used to do.
“Well, madame,” she said, with a tinge of bitterness in her tones, “it seems that I, at any rate, carry my wits in my pocket; for I am quite at a loss to understand you. Speak out and explain yourself; you can speak freely before M. le Curé, he is my director, as you know.”
“Well, then, mademoiselle, see for yourself what des Grassins says. Here is the letter.”
Eugénie read:—
My dear wife—Charles Grandet has returned from the Indies, and has been in Paris these two months—
“Two months!” said Eugénie to herself, and her hand fell to her side. After a moment she went on reading:—
I had to dance attendance upon him, and called twice before the future Comte d’Aubrion would condescend to see me. All Paris is talking about his marriage, and the banns are published—
“And he wrote to me after that?” Eugénie said to herself. She did not round off the sentence as a Parisienne would have done, with “Wretch that he is!” but her scorn was not one whit the less because it was unexpressed.
—but it will be a good while yet before he marries; it is not likely that the Marquis d’Aubrion will give his daughter to the son of a bankrupt wine merchant. I called and told him of all the trouble we had been at, his uncle and I, in the matter of his father’s failure, and of our clever dodges that had kept the creditors quiet so far. The insolent puppy had the effrontery to say to me—to me, who for five years have toiled day and night in his interest and to save his credit—that his father’s affairs were not his! A solicitor would have wanted thirty or forty thousand francs of him in fees at the rate of one percent on the total of the debt! But, patience! There is something that he does owe, however, and that the law shall make him pay, that is to say, twelve hundred thousand francs to his father’s creditors, and I shall declare his father bankrupt. I mixed myself up in this affair on the word of that old crocodile of a Grandet, and I have given promises in the name of the family. M. le Comte d’Aubrion may not care for his honor, but I care a good deal for mine! So I shall just explain my position to the creditors. Still, I have too much respect for Mlle. Eugénie (with whom, in happier days, we hoped to be more closely connected) to take any steps before you have spoken to her—
There Eugénie paused, and quietly returned the letter.
“I am obliged to you,” she said to Mme. des Grassins. “We shall see—”
“Your voice was exactly like your father’s just then,” exclaimed Mme. des Grassins.
“Madame,” put in Nanon, producing Charles’ cheque, “you have eight thousand francs to pay us.”
“True. Be so good as to come with me, Mme. Cornoiller.”
“M. le Curé,” said Eugénie, with a noble composure that came of the thought which prompted her, “would it be a sin to remain in a state of virginity after marriage?”
“It is a case of conscience which I cannot solve. If you care to know what the celebrated Sanchez says in his great work, De Matrimonio, I could inform you tomorrow.”
The curé took leave. Mlle. Grandet went up to her father’s room and spent the day there by herself; she would not even come down to dinner, though Nanon begged and scolded. She appeared in the evening at the hour when the usual company began to arrive. The gray parlor in the Grandet’s house had never been so well filled as it was that night. Every soul in the town knew by that time of Charles’ return, and of his faithlessness and ingratitude; but their inquisitive curiosity was not to be gratified. Eugénie was a little late, but no one saw any traces of the cruel agitation through which she had passed; she could smile benignly in reply to the compassionate looks and words which some of the group thought fit to bestow on her; she bore her pain behind a mask of politeness.
About nine o’clock the cardplayers drew away from the tables, paid their losses, and criticised the game and the various points that had been made. Just as there was a general move in the direction of the door, an unexpected development took
