"That's right," said Monsieur Antoine; "of course I am a despot, an unnatural father! All right! all right! fall to on me if it relieves you. After that, perhaps my daughter will be kind enough to tell me what the matter is, and what I have done that's so criminal."
"Dear father," said Gilberte, throwing herself into his arms, "let us stop this melancholy jesting, and do you make haste to dismiss Monsieur Galuchet forever, so that I can breathe freely again and forget this bad dream."
"Ah! there's the rub," said Monsieur Antoine; "the trouble is to know what I am to write to him, and that is something it will be well to consult about."
"Do you know, mother," said Gilberte to Janille, "he doesn't know what answer to give him? Apparently he wasn't able to say no to him."
"Well, my child, your father didn't do very wrong," replied Janille, "for I listened to your fine suitor's offer without getting excited, and I didn't say yes or no to him. There! there! don't be angry. That's the right way to do, and then consult calmly. You can't say to the fellow: 'I don't like you;' people don't say that sort of thing. You can't say to him either: 'We belong to a good family and your name is Galuchet;' for that would be unkind and mortifying."
"And it wouldn't be any reason," said Gilberte. "What does nobility matter to us now? True nobility is in the heart and not in empty titles. It isn't the name of Galuchet that disgusts me, but the manners and feelings of the man who bears it."
"My daughter is right: name, profession and fortune are nothing," said Monsieur Antoine. "So those are not the means for us to use. Nor can we blame a man for his physical defects. The best thing for us to say is that Gilberte doesn't want to marry."
"Allow me, monsieur, one moment," said Janille. "I don't propose to have you say that; for if this young man should go about repeating it—as he wouldn't fail to do—no one else would come forward, and I am not in favor of my girl turning nun."
"But we must give some reason," said Monsieur Antoine. "Suppose we say that she doesn't want to marry yet, and that we think she's too young."
"Yes, yes, that's it, father! you have hit upon the best reason, and it's the true one. I do not want to marry yet; I am too young."