He set up a noisy laugh. “Just fancy. I was stupid enough to go and talk to my father about it Yes, I was simple enough to ask him to find some shareholders at Toulouse.”
And he gaily described the anger of the old man, enraged against the great Parisian bazaars, in his little country shop. Old Bouthemont, suffocated by the thirty thousand francs a year earned by his son, had replied that he would give his money and that of his friends to the hospitals rather than contribute a sou to one of those shops which were the pests of the drapery business.
“Besides,” continued the young man, “it would require millions.”
“Suppose they were found?” observed Madame Desforges, simply.
He looked at her, serious all at once. Was it not merely a jealous woman's word? But she did not give him time to question her, adding: “In short, you know what a great interest I take in you. We'll talk about it again.”
The outer bell had rung. She got up, and he, himself, with an instinctive movement, drew back his chair, as if they might have been surprised. A silence reigned in the drawingroom, with its pretty hangings, and decorated with such a profusion of green plants that there was quite a small wood between the two windows. She stood there waiting, with her ear towards the door.
“There he is,” she murmured.
The footman announced Monsieur Mouret and Monsieur de Vallagnosc. Henriette could not restrain a movement of anger. Why had he not come alone? He must have gone after his friend, fearful of a tête-à-tête with her. However, she smiled and shook hands with the two men.
“What a stranger you are getting. I may say the same for you, Monsieur de Vallagnosc.”
Her great grief was to be becoming stout, and she squeezed herself into tight black silk dresses, to conceal her increasing obesity. However, her pretty face, with her dark hair, preserved its amiable expression. And Mouret could familiarly tell her, enveloping her with a look: