"Well, sir, it was said of a good wife by the ancients 'bene quæ latuit, bene vixit,' that is, she is the best wife that is least talked of: but here 'male quæ patuit' were as near the mark. Therefore, an you bear the lass good-will, why not club purses with Denys and me and convey her safe home with a dowry? Then mayhap some rustical person in her own place may be brought to wive her."
"Why so many words?" said Denys. "This old fox is not the ass he affects to be."
"Oh! that is your advice is it?" said the landlord testily. "Well then we shall soon know who is the fool, you or me, for I have spoken to her as it happens; and what is more she has said Ay, and she is polishing the flagons at this moment."
"Oho!" said Denys drily, "'twas an ambuscade. Well, in that case, my advice is, run for the notary, tie the noose, and let us three drink the bride's health, till we see six sots a-tippling."
"And shall. Ay, now you utter sense."
In ten minutes a civil marriage was effected upstairs before a notary and his clerk and our two friends.
In ten minutes more the white hind, dead sick of seclusion, had taken her place within the bar, and was serving out liquids, and bustling, and her color rising a little.
In six minutes more she soundly rated a careless servant-girl for carrying a nipperkin of wine awry and spilling good liquor.
During the evening she received across the bar eight offers of marriage, some of them from respectable burghers. Now the landlord and our two friends had in perfect innocence ensconced themselves behind a screen to drink at their ease the new couple's health. The above comedy was thrown in for their entertainment by bounteous fate. They heard the proposals made one after another, and uninventive Manon's invariable answer—"Serviteur; you are a day after the fair." The landlord chuckled and looked good-natured superiority at both his late advisers, with their traditional notions that men shun a woman "quæ patuit," i. e., who has become the town talk.
But Denys scarce noticed the spouse's triumph over him, he was so occupied with his own over Gerard. At each municipal tender of undying affection, he turned almost purple with the effort it cost him not to roar with glee; and driving his elbow into the deep-meditating and much-puzzled pupil of antiquity, whispered "le peu que sont les hommes."