"You shall have them when the affair is settled. Do you hear me? Go—or wait to be kicked. Which shall it be?"
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH THREE WORDS CONTAIN A GOOD DEAL OF INFORMATION
It was not so easy for Angelot to make his peace with Uncle Joseph, who was more than a little angry with him.
"Yes, my boy, you were foolish, as well as ungrateful. It was a chance, it was a moment, that will not occur again. It was better that the idea should seem to come from me, not from you, and it seemed the only way to save that pretty girl from some marriage she will hate. I thought you would at least be ready to throw yourself at her feet—but you were not even that, Angelot. You refused her—you refused Mademoiselle Hélène, after all you had told me—and do you know what that mother of hers has been planning for her? No? Don't look at me with such eyes; it is your own doing. Madame de Sainfoy would arrange a marriage for her with General Ratoneau, if Hervé would consent. He says he will not, he says a convent would be better—"
"Ah!" Angelot gave a choked cry, and stamped violently in the sand. "Ah! Ratoneau or a convent! Dieu! Not while I live!"
"Very fine to say so now!" said Monsieur Joseph, shaking his head.
He was ready to go out shooting in the fresh morning air. His gun leaned against the bench where he was sitting, and his dog watched him with eager eyes. His delicate face was dark with melancholy disgust as he looked at the boy he loved, tramping restlessly up and down between him and the fir trees.
"You don't listen to me, Uncle Joseph; you don't understand me!" Angelot cried out passionately. "What do you take me for? It was for her sake that I answered as I did. It was because she had told me, one minute before, that her mother would kill her if she knew that she—that I—"