Every day she was more and more taken up with this son. She had no diversions, nothing to occupy her imagination; she did not read, and had grown old living with a husband who had brought her no love and whom she had always felt to be quite apart from her, engrossed as he had ever been in his studies, politics, and business. She had no one left with her but a daughter to whom she had never given her whole heart, and so she had ended by devoting her life to Henri's interests and putting all her vanity into his future. And her one thought—the thought which occupied every hour of her days and nights, her fixed idea—was the marriage of this adored son. She wanted him to marry well, to make a match which should be rich enough and brilliant enough to make up to her and repay her for all the dulness and obscurity of her own existence, for her life of economy and solitude, for all her own privations as wife and mother.
"Do you even know your son's age, M. Mauperin?" continued Mme. Mauperin.
"Henri, why, my dear, Henri must be—He was born in 1826, wasn't he?"
"Oh, that's just like a father to ask! Yes, 1826, the 12th of July, 1826."
"Well, then, he is twenty-nine. Fancy that now, he is twenty-nine!"
"And you fold your arms and take things easily! You don't trouble in the least about his future! You say, 'Fancy that now, he's twenty-nine'—just like that, quite calmly! Any other man would stir himself and look round. Henri isn't like his sister, he wants to marry. Have you ever thought of finding a suitable match for him—a wife? Oh, dear, no, not any more than for the King of Prussia, of course not! It's just the same as it was for your elder daughter. I should like to know what you did towards that marriage? Whether she found any one or not, it appeared to be all the same to you. How I did have to urge you on to do anything in the matter! Oh, you can wipe your hands of that marriage; your daughter's happiness can't weigh much on your conscience, I should think! If I had not been there you would have found a husband like M. Davarande, shouldn't you? A model husband, who adores Henriette—and such a gentleman!"
Mme. Mauperin blew out the candle and got into bed by the side of M. Mauperin, who had turned over with his face towards the wall.
"Yes," she went on, stretching herself out full length under the sheets, "a model husband! Do you imagine that there are many sons-in-law who would be so attentive to us? He would do anything to give us pleasure. You invite him to dinner and give him meat on fasting-days and he never says a word. Then, too, he is so obliging. I wanted to match some wools for my tapestry-work the other day——"
"My dear, what is it we were talking about? I must tell you that I should like to get a bit of sleep to-night. You began with your daughter, and now you've started the chapter of M. Davarande's perfections. I know that chapter—there's enough to last till to-morrow morning. Come now, you want your son to marry, don't you? That's it, isn't it? Well, I'm quite willing—let's get him married."
"Just as though I could count on you for getting him married! A lot of trouble you'll go to about it; you are the right sort of man to inconvenience yourself for anything."