“But—you bring back the money?”
“Because I have found an honest man, dearest grandpapa,—a most honorable man. Poor fellow, how I must have tempted his honesty! For he is very much embarrassed, I know it from good authority, ever since he and his sisters bought that house. It was more than comfort, it was a real fortune, I offered him. Ah! you ought to have seen how his eyes brightened up, and how his hands trembled, when he took up the bonds! Well, he refused to take them, after all; and the only reward he asks for the very good service which he is going to render us”—
M. de Chandore expressed his assent by a gesture, and then said,—
“You are right, darling: that clerk is a good man, and he has won our eternal gratitude.”
“I ought to add,” continued Dionysia, “that I was ever so brave. I should never have thought that I could be so bold. I wish you had been hid in some corner, grandpapa, to see me and hear me. You would not have recognized your grandchild. I cried a little, it is true, when I had carried my point.”
“Oh, dear, dear child!” murmured the old gentleman, deeply moved.
“You see, grandpapa, I thought of nothing but of Jacques’s danger, and of the glory of proving myself worthy of him, who is so brave himself. I hope he will be satisfied with me.”
“He would be hard to please, indeed, if he were not!” exclaimed M. de Chandore.
The grandfather and his child were standing all the while under the trees in the great Square while they were thus talking to each other; and already a number of people had taken the opportunity of passing close by them, with ears wide open, and all eagerness, to find out what was going on: it is a way people have in small towns. Dionysia remembered the clerk’s kindly warnings; and, as soon as she became aware of it, she said to her grandfather,—
“Come, grandpapa. People are listening. I will tell you the rest as we are going home.”