"'I didn't ask it seriously, Janille, but simply to see how low the value of a fine estate had fallen. They told me ten thousand francs for what was left, and I retired, knowing well enough that ten thousand francs and I would never pass through the same door.'
"'Well, monsieur,' says I, 'it's no longer a matter of ten thousand francs, but only four thousand at this moment. They thought that you couldn't resist the temptation, and that you would spend what capital you had left in re-establishing yourself in the ruins of your domain. That's why they fixed the price at ten thousand francs on a place that isn't worth the half of it, and that no one but you would ever want; but since you gave up buying it back they have grown more modest. I have been bargaining secretly, without your knowledge and under an assumed name. Say the word, and to-morrow you shall be lord of Châteaubrun.'
"'But what good would it do me, my dear Janille? What could I do with this pile of stone and these three or four fragments of wall with no doors or windows?'"
"With that I pointed out to monsieur that the square pavilion was still in very good condition, that the arches were well preserved, the rooms perfectly dry inside, and that we should only have to cover it with tiles, repair the woodwork and furnish it simply—a matter of five hundred francs at most. At that monsieur cried out: 'Don't put such ideas into my head, Janille; I should think you were trying to disgust me with my present condition and feed me on illusions. I haven't ten, or five, or four thousand francs, and it would require ten more years of privation to save them. We had much better remain as we are.'"
"'And how do you know, monsieur,' says I, 'that you haven't six thousand francs, yes, sixty-five hundred? Do you know how much you have? I'll wager that you know nothing about it.'"
At this point Monsieur Antoine interrupted Janille. "It is true," he said, "that I knew nothing about it; that I know nothing about it yet; and that I never shall know how, with an income of twelve hundred francs, after paying for my daughter's schooling at Paris for six years, and living at Gargilesse, as a workingman to be sure, but very comfortably none the less, in a little house which Janille managed herself—and, I may add that, although she held the purse-strings, she allowed me to spend two or three francs on Sundays with my friends. No, I shall never understand how I could have saved six thousand francs! As it is altogether impossible, I am forced to explain this miracle to Monsieur Emile Cardonnet, unless he has already guessed its solution."
"Yes, monsieur le comte, I have guessed it," said Emile; "Mademoiselle Janille had saved money in your service when you were rich, or else she had some money of her own, and it was she who——"
"No, monsieur," interposed Janille hastily, "nothing of the sort; you forget that monsieur earned his living at his carpentering, and you can well believe that mademoiselle's boarding-school wasn't one of the dearest in Paris, although it was a good school, I flatter myself."
"Nonsense," said Gilberte, kissing her; "you lie very coolly, Mère Janille; but you will never make my father and me believe that Châteaubrun was not bought with your money, that it does not really belong to you, and that we are not living in your house, although you bought it in our name."
"Not at all, not at all, mademoiselle," replied the noble-hearted Janille, that strange little woman who liked to boast on every occasion and to make herself heard on every subject, but who, to maintain the dignity of her masters' rank, of which she was more careful than they were themselves, energetically denied the noblest action of her whole life;—"not at all, I tell you, I had nothing to do with it. Is it my fault if your papa doesn't know how to count five and if you are as careless as he? Bah! A lot you know about your receipts and your expenses, both of you! Leave you to yourselves, and we'll see what will become of you! I tell you that you are in your own house, and that if there is anything for me to boast of, it is that I managed your affairs with so much good sense and economy that monsieur found himself one fine morning richer than he thought.