Other People's Money by Emile Gaboriau (ebook smartphone txt) 📕

“I beg your pardon:  I was quite near, and involuntarily—”

“You have heard his—propositions?”

“Perfectly.  He was promising you a carriage, a box at the opera, diamonds, freedom.  Isn’t that the dream of all young ladies?”

“It is not mine, madame!”

“Dear me!  What better can you wish?  You must not expect more from a husband than he can possibly give.”

“That is not what I shall expect of him.”

In a tone of paternal indulgence, which his looks belied: 

“She is mad,” suggested M. Favoral.

Tears of indignation filled Mlle. Gilberte’s eyes.

“Mme. Desclavettes,” she exclaimed, “forgets something.  She forgets that this gentleman dared to tell me that he proposed to settle upon the woman he marries a large fortune, of which his creditors would thus be cheated in case of his failure in business.”

She thought, in her simplicity, that a cry of indignation would rise at these words.  Instead of which: 

“Well, isn’t it perfectly natural?” said M. Desclavettes.

“It seems to me more than natural,” insisted Mme. Desclavettes, “that a man should be anxious to preserve from ruin his wife and children.”

“Of course,” put in M. Favoral.

Stepping resolutely toward her father: 

“Have you, then, taken such precautions yourself?” demanded Mlle. Gilberte.

“No,” answered the cashier of the Mutual Credit.  And, after a moment of hesitation: 

“But I am running no risks,” he added.  “In business, and when a man may be ruined by a mere rise or fall in stocks, he would be insane indeed who did not secure bread for his family, and, above all, means for himself, wherewith to commence again.  The Baron de Thaller did not act otherwise; and, should he meet with a disaster, Mme. de Thaller would still have a handsome fortune.”

M. Desormeaux was, perhaps, the only one not to admit freely that theory, and not to accept that ever-decisive reason, “Others do it.”

But he was a philosopher, and thought it silly not to be of his time.  He therefore contented himself with saying: 

“Hum!  M. de Thaller’s creditors might not think that mode of proceeding entirely regular.”

“Then they might sue,” said M. Chapelain, laughing.  “People can always sue; only when the papers are well drawn—”

Mlle. Gilberte stood dismayed.  She thought of Marius de Tregars giving up his mother’s fortune to pay his father’s debts.

“What would he say,” thought she, “should he hear such opinions!”

The cashier of the Mutual Credit resumed: 

“Surely I blame every species of fraud.  But I pretend, and I maintain, that a man who has worked twenty years to give a handsome dowry to his daughter has the right to demand of his son-in-law certain conservative measures to guarantee the money, which, after all, is his own, and which is to benefit no one but his own family.”

This declaration closed the evening.  It was getting late.  The Saturday guests put on their overcoats; and, as they were walking home,

“Can you understand that little Gilberte?” said Mme. Desclavettes.  “I’d like to see a daughter of mine have such fancies!  But her poor mother is so weak!”

“Yes; but friend Favoral is firm enough for both,” interrupted M. Desormeaux; “and it is more than probable that at this very moment he is correcting his daughter of the sin of sloth.”

Well, not at all.  Extremely angry as M. Favoral must have been, neither that evening, nor the next day, did he make the remotest allusion to what had taken place.

The following Monday only, before leaving for his office, casting upon his wife and daughter one of his ugliest looks: 

“M.  Costeclar owes us a visit,” said he; “and it is possible that he may call in my absence.  I wish him to be admitted; and I forbid you to go out, so that you can have no pretext to refuse him the door.  I presume there will not be found in my house any one bold enough to ill receive a man whom I like, and whom I have selected for my son-in-law.”

But was it probable, was it even possible, that M. Costeclar could venture upon such a step after Mlle. Gilberte’s treatment of him on the previous Saturday evening?

“No, a thousand times no!” affirmed Maxence to his mother and sister.  “So you may rest easy.”

Indeed they tried to be, until that very afternoon the sound of rapidly-rolling wheels attracted Mme. Favoral to the window.  A coupe, drawn by two gray horses, had just stopped at the door.

“It must be he,” she said to her daughter.

Mlle. Gilberte had turned slightly pale.

“There is no help for it, mother,” she said:  “You must receive him.”

“And you?”

“I shall remain in my room.”

“Do you suppose he won’t ask for you?”

“You will answer that I am unwell.  He will understand.”

“But your father, unhappy child, your father?”

“I do not acknowledge to my father the right of disposing of my person against my wishes.  I detest that man to whom he wishes to marry me.  Would you like to see me his wife, to know me given up to the most intolerable torture?  No, there is no violence in the world that will ever wring my consent from me.  So, mother dear, do what I ask you.  My father can say what he pleases:  I take the whole responsibility upon myself.”

There was no time to argue:  the bell rang.  Mlle. Gilberte had barely time to escape through one of the doors of the parlor, whilst M. Costeclar was entering at the other.

If he did have enough perspicacity to guess what had just taken place, he did not in any way show it.  He sat down; and it was only after conversing for a few moments upon indifferent subjects, that he asked how Mlle. Gilberte was.

“She is somewhat—unwell,” stammered Mme. Favoral.

He did not appear surprised; only,

“Our dear Favoral,” he said, “will be still more pained than I am when he hears of this mishap.”

Better than any other mother, Mme. Favoral must have understood and approved Mlle. Gilberte’s invincible repugnance.  To her also, when she was young, her father had come one day, and said, “I have discovered a husband for you.”  She had