“Wait a bit longer,” murmured Monsieur Josserand, whose heart bled at the thought of this separation.
“No, no!” declared the mother, “I do not want him to spit me in the end! I had brought my brother to the point, I was about to get him to do something. Never mind! we will go with Berthe to-morrow to his own place, and we will see if he will have the cheek to escape from his promises. Besides, Berthe owes her godfather a visit. It is only proper.”
On the morrow, all three, the mother, the father, and the daughter, paid an official visit to the uncle’s warehouses, which occupied the basement and the ground floor of an enormous house in the Rue d’Enghien.
“Hallo! you here!” said he, greatly annoyed.
And he received them in a little closet, from which he watched his men through a window.
“I have brought Berthe to see you,” explained Madame Josserand. “She knows what she owes you.”
Then, when the young girl, after kissing her uncle, had, on a glance from her mother, returned to look at the goods in the courtyard, the latter resolutely broached the subject.
“Listen, Narcisse; this is how we are situated. Counting on your kindness of heart and on your promises, I have engaged to give a dowry of fifty thousand francs. If I do not give it, the marriage will be broken off. It would be a disgrace, things having gone as far as they have. You cannot leave us in such an embarrassing position.”
But a vacant look had come into Bachelard’s eyes, and he stuttered, as though very drunk:
“Eh? what? you’ve promised. You should never promise; it’s a bad thing to promise.”