“Heavens! no—a day!”
The three peasants started and then looked at each other. From any one else but M. Numa the deputy, member of the General Council, they would have suspected a joke, a galéjade! But with him of course the matter was serious. Two hundred francs a day—foutré! The musician himself wished to go at once, but his more prudent sister would have liked to draw up a paper for Roumestan to sign; and then quietly, with lowered eyelids, that the money greed in her eyes might not be seen, she began to canvass the matter in her hypocritical voice.
Valmajour was so much needed at home, pécaïré! He took care of the property, ploughed, dressed the vines, his father being too old now for such work. What should they do if her brother went away? And he—he would be sure to be homesick alone in Paris, and his money, his two hundred francs a day, who would take care of it in that awful great city? And her voice hardened as she spoke of money that she could not take care of and stow carefully away in her most secret drawer.
“Well,” said Roumestan, “come to Paris with him.”
“And the house?”
“Leave it or sell it. You can buy a much better one when you come back.”
He hesitated as Hortense glanced warningly at him, and, as if remorseful for disturbing the quiet life of these simple people, he said:
“After all, there is a great deal besides money in this life. You are lucky enough as you are.”
Audiberte interrupted him sharply: “Lucky? Existence is a struggle; things are not as they used to be!”—and she began again to whine about the vineyards, the silk-worms, the madder, the vermilion and all the other vanished riches of the country. Nowadays one had to work in the sun like cart-horses. It is true that they expected to inherit the fortune of Cousin Puyfourcat, the colonist in Algiers, but Algeria is so far away; and then the astute little peasant, in order to warm Numa up, whom she reproached herself for causing to lose some of his enthusiasm on the subject, turned in a catty way to her brother and said in her coaxing, singsong voice:
“Qué, Valmajour! suppose you play something for the pleasure of the pretty young lady.”