“Yes, yes, that’s it,” stammered Berthe, who released herself and fled.
Hortense also had risen. She ran after her sister, and both took refuge in her room.
“Come in, come in, my dear Auguste,” said he, in a choking tone of voice. “Berthe has just told me of your quarrel. I’m not very well, and they’ve been spoiling me. I regret immensely not being able to give you that money. I did wrong in promising, I know—”
“Yes, sir, I know all. You completely took me in with your lies. I don’t mind so much not having the money; but it’s the hypocrisy of the thing which exasperates me! Why all that nonsense about an assurance which did not exist? Why give yourself such airs of tenderness and affection, by offering to advance sums which, according to you, you would not be entitled to receive till three years later? And you were not even blessed with a sou! Such behavior has only one name in every country.”
Monsieur Josserand opened his mouth to exclaim: “It is not I; it is them!” But he was ashamed to accuse the family; he bowed his head, thus accepting the responsibility of the disgraceful action. Auguste continued:
“Moreover, every one was against me, even that Duveyrier behaved like a rascal, with his scoundrel of a notary; for I asked to have the assurance mentioned in the contract, as a guarantee, and I was made to shut up. Had I insisted, though, you would have been guilty of swindling. Yes, sir, swindling!”
At this accusation, the father, who was very pale, rose to his feet, and he was about to answer, to offer his labor, to purchase his daughter’s happiness with all of his existence that remained to him, when Madame Josserand, quite beside herself through Madame Dambreville’s obstinacy, no longer thinking of her old green silk dress, now splitting, through the heaving of her angry bosom, entered like a blast of wind.
“Eh? what?” cried she; “who talks of swindling? Is it you, sir? You would do better, sir, to go first to Père-Lachaise cemetery to see if it’s your father’s pay-day!”
Auguste had expected this, but he was all the same horribly annoyed. She went on, with head erect, and quite crushing in her audacity:
“We’ve got them, your ten thousand francs. Yes, they’re there in a drawer. But we will only give them to you when Monsieur Vabre returns to give you the others. What a family! a gambler of a father who lets us all in, and a thief of a brother-in-law who pops the inheritance into his own pocket!”