“She will accept,” good Mme. Mairieux assured me. “How can you imagine that she will not?”
To her the refusal was almost sacrilege.
Seeing my stupefaction and my emotion, her husband took my hand.
“We are much touched by your offer, M. Cernay,” he said. “We expected it so little. We are simple folk, without ambition. Some nice fellow, an industrious, cheerful, intelligent, upright, sensitive-souled lad who would have assured us Raymonde’s happiness—we did not ask anything more. In order to find him we were planning to go to the city the next winter or two. But you—no, truly, we did not think of it.”
Throughout this harangue, which was scarcely to her taste, Mme. Mairieux kept shaking her head. Despite her denials, however, her husband continued:
“Your offer is an honour. Many advantageous marriages were open to you and you chose this. Now allow us to recover our breath and think it over. I will question my daughter, and learn whether her answer is final or not.”
“No, no,” protested his wife. “It is not.”
“I will let you know, I promise you,” he said.
“When?” I demanded instantly.
“Some day soon.”