“Do not suppose that I am offering my own opinion. You wished to know what was said in the town, and I am trying to remember.”
“I understand perfectly. I should like to know what were some of these disagreeables to which you allude?”
But Leroux was alarmed.
“Ah, for that you must ask some one else. There is plenty of gossip running about the town, but I have not the time or the inclination to listen to it. Besides, what does it matter now! It is no longer a question of marrying Mademoiselle Nathalie. There she is, safe at Poissy, and there are you, father-in-law to a baron. What would you have more?”
M. Bourget brought his hand down so heavily on the little marble table that the cups jumped.
“What have I to do with it?” he asked, angrily. “Did I pay for your coffee that you might inform me what I want or what I don’t want? I ask a plain question, and you wander off to give an opinion on my concerns. Keep to your point. I suppose all you wiseacres had at least the sense to see that Monsieur de Beaudrillart had began to economise before I gave him my daughter? But perhaps they could give him no credit even for that?”
“Oh, they saw he had raised money somehow,” said Leroux, longing to thump the table himself, “and his credit was so low that they said he must have stolen it.”
M. Bourget’s face turned to a dull purple, his voice felt strangled, he leaned forward, and said, with difficulty:
“They are rascals, and you are a fool!”
Leroux jumped up, with a smile on his sharp face. He had merely spoken spitefully, and thought that his companion’s anger was due to the fact that any one should have dared to utter anything disrespectful of the master of Poissy.