“Has he no vices, then?” asked uncle Bachelard. “I thought he speculated at the Bourse.”
But Madame Josserand cried out. Such a quiet old gentleman, and occupied on a such a great task! That one, at least, had shown himself capable of putting a fortune by; and she smiled bitterly as she looked at her husband, who bowed his head.
As for Monsieur Vabre’s three children, Auguste, Clotilde and Théophile, they had each had a hundred thousand francs on their mother’s death. Théophile, after some ruinous enterprises, was living as best he could on the crumbs of this inheritance. Clotilde, with no other passion than her piano, had probably invested her share. And Auguste had purchased the business on the ground floor and gone in for the silk trade with his hundred thousand francs, which he had long kept in reserve.
“And the old fellow naturally gives nothing to his children when they marry,” observed the uncle.
Well! he did not much like giving, that was a fact which was unfortunately indisputable.
“Well!” declared Bachelard, “it is always hard on the parents. Dowries are never really paid.”
“Let us return to Auguste,” continued Madame Josserand. “I have told you his expectations, and the only danger comes from the Duveyriers, whom Berthe will do well to watch very closely, if she enters the family. At the present moment, Auguste, after purchasing the business for sixty thousand francs, has started with the other forty thousand. Only, the sum is not sufficient; besides which, he is single, and requires a wife; that is why he wishes to marry. Berthe is pretty, he already sees her in his counting-house; and as for the dowry, fifty thousand francs are a respectable sum which has decided him.”
Uncle Bachelard did not so much as blink his eyes. He ended by saying, in a tender-hearted way, that he had dreamed of something better. And he commenced to pick the future husband to pieces: a charming fellow, certainly; but too old, a great deal too old, thirty-three years and over; besides which, always ill, his face distorted by neuralgia; in short, a sorry object, not near lively enough for trade.
“Have you another?” asked Madame Josserand, whose patience was wearing out. “I searched all Paris before finding him.”
However, she did not deceive herself much. She too picked him to pieces.