"There, I tell you that you perform miracles!"
"Ah, madame, you flatter me," said Jacques Ferrand, with emphasis.
M. de Saint-Remy made a low bow to Madame d'Orbigny, and then, as he left the notary, desirous of trying once more to excite his pity, he said to him, in a careless tone, which, however, betrayed deep anxiety:
"Then, my dear M. Ferrand, you will not grant me the favour I ask?"
"Some wild scheme, no doubt. Be inexorable, my dear Puritan," cried Madame d'Orbigny, laughing.
"You hear, sir? I must not contradict such a handsome lady."
"My dear M. Ferrand, let us speak seriously of serious things, and, you know, this is a most serious matter. Do you really refuse me?" inquired the viscount, with an anxiety which he could not altogether dissemble.
The notary was cruel enough to appear to hesitate; M. de Saint-Remy had an instant's hope.
"What, man of iron, do you yield?" said Madame d'Harville's stepmother, laughing still. "Do you, too, yield to the charm of the irresistible?"
"Ma foi, madame! I was on the point of yielding, as you say; but you make me blush for my weakness," added M. Ferrand. And then, addressing himself to the viscount, he said to him, with an accent of which Saint-Remy felt all the meaning, "Well then, seriously," (and he dwelt on the word), "it is impossible."