"The law is opposed to it. You're not fifty years old, and he's not fifteen years younger than you are; quite the reverse!"
"Very well; I'll legitimize him by marrying the young Clementine."
"How can you expect her to acknowledge a child twice as old as she is herself?"
"But then I can't acknowledge him any better; so there's no need of my marrying the old woman. Moreover, I'd be excessively accommodating to break my head for a child who is very likely dead. What do I say? It is possible that he never saw the light. I love and am loved—that much is substantial and certain; and you shall be my groomsman."
"Not yet awhile. Mlle. Sambucco is a minor, and her guardian is my father."
"Your father is an honorable man; and he will not have the baseness to refuse her to me."
"At least he will ask you if you have any position, any rank, any fortune to offer to his ward."
"My position? colonel; my rank? colonel; my fortune? the pay of a colonel. And the millions at Dantzic—I mustn't forget them!—Here we are at home; let me have the will of that good old gentleman who wore the lilac wig. Give me some books on history, too—a big pile of them—all that have anything to say about Napoleon."
Young Renault sadly obeyed the master he had given himself. He conducted Fougas to a fine chamber, brought him Herr Meiser's will and a whole shelf of books, and bid his mortal enemy "Good night." The Colonel embraced him impetuously, and said to him,
"I will never forget that to you I owe life and Clementine. Farewell till to-morrow, noble and generous child of my native land! farewell!"