“But if he says he likes the girl?” continued Madame Bauche.
“My friend, you may be sure that he will say nothing of the kind. He has not been away two years without seeing girls as pretty as Marie. And then you have his letter.”
“That is nothing, capitaine; he would eat his letter as quick as you would eat an omelet aux fines herbes.”
Now the capitaine was especially quick over an omelet aux fines herbes.
“And, Mère Bauche, you also have the purse; he will know that he cannot eat that, except with your good will.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Madame Bauche, “poor lad! He has not a sous in the world unless I give it to him.” But it did not seem that this reflection was in itself displeasing to her.
“Adolphe will now be a man of the world,” continued the capitaine. “He will know that it does not do to throw away everything for a pair of red lips. That is the folly of a boy, and Adolphe will be no longer a boy. Believe me, Mère Bauche, things will be right enough.”
“And then we shall have Marie sick and ill and half dying on our hands,” said Madame Bauche.
This was not flattering to the capitaine, and so he felt it. “Perhaps so, perhaps not,” he said. “But at any rate she will get over it. It is a malady which rarely kills young women—especially when another alliance awaits them.”
“Bah!” said Madame Bauche; and in saying that word she avenged herself for the too great liberty which the capitaine had lately taken. He shrugged his shoulders, took a pinch of snuff and uninvited helped himself to a teaspoonful of cognac. Then the conference ended, and on the next morning before breakfast Adolphe Bauche arrived.