"I have things within me to occupy my mind, and what you say to me is nothing compared to what I think."
If Monsieur Cardonnet, by some artifice, succeeded in keeping him at home, he seemed distressed for a moment, then, suddenly assuming an air of resignation, like a man whom it is impossible to dispossess of his stock of happiness, he made haste to obey, and set about his task in order to have done with it the sooner.
"There's a pretty girl at the bottom of all this," said Monsieur Cardonnet to himself, "and it is love that makes this rebellious mind so docile. It's a very good thing to know. So the philosophical, argumentative fever may give way to thirst for pleasure or to sentimental reveries! I was very foolish not to reckon on his youth and the passions of youth! I must let this storm rage—it will blow away the obstacle upon which I should have gone to pieces; and when it is time to stay the storm, I will see what it is best to do. Make haste with your riding about the country and your loving, my poor Emile! It's the same with you as with this mountain stream that has declared war on me: you will both submit when you feel the hand of the master!"
Monsieur Cardonnet was not conscious of his cruelty. He believed neither in the force nor duration of love, and attached no more importance to a young man's despair than to a child's tears. If he had thought that Mademoiselle de Châteaubrun could become the victim of his plan of waiting, he might perhaps have been conscience-stricken. But the spirit of a proprietor and of everyone for himself, prevented him from foreseeing the danger of another.
"It's old Antoine's business to look out for his daughter," he thought. "If the old sot sleeps on his own perils, he has at all events a servant-mistress who has nothing better to do than put the key of the famous pavilion in her pocket at night. I can open the duenna's eyes when the time comes."
With this persuasion he left Emile almost free, both as to his time and his acts. He confined himself to ridiculing and bitterly decrying the family of Châteaubrun when opportunity offered, in order to protect himself from the reproach of having openly encouraged his son's suit.
In his opinion, Antoine de Châteaubrun was really a poor creature, a man of no consideration, whom poverty had degraded and idleness brutalized. He saw with vainglorious pleasure the former lords of the soil, thus fallen from their high estate, take refuge in the arms of the people, not daring to have recourse to the protection and companionship of the newly rich.
Monsieur de Boisguilbault found no favor in his eyes, although it was difficult to reproach him with dissipation and impropriety of conduct. The wealth which he had succeeded in retaining gave much more umbrage to Cardonnet than the name of Châteaubrun, and while he despised the count, he had a sort of hatred for the marquis. He declared that he was a fit subject for the lunatic hospital, and he blushed for him, he said, because of the idiotic use he had made of so long a life and so vast a fortune.
Emile took pains to defend Monsieur de Boisguilbault, but without avowing that he saw him two or three times a week. He was afraid that his father, by suggesting to him that he must make his visits more infrequent, would deprive him of the excuse he had for making a short call on the family at Châteaubrun as he rode by. He needed that excuse particularly on Gilberte's account, for he was confident that Monsieur Antoine would make no comment; but he was afraid that Janille might convince Mademoiselle that her dignity demanded that she should keep at a respectful distance a young man who was too wealthy to marry her, according to worldly ideas.
He foresaw clearly enough that the day would come when his assiduity would be observed.