“Ha! you’ve come a-greeting,” said Nanon, smelling the flowers.
“Excuse me, messieurs,” cried Grandet, recognizing their voices; “I’ll be with you in a moment. I’m not proud; I am patching up a step on my staircase.”
“Go on, go on, Monsieur Grandet; a man’s house is his castle,” said the president sententiously.
Madame and Mademoiselle Grandet rose. The president, profiting by the darkness, said to Eugenie:
“Will you permit me, mademoiselle, to wish you, on this the day of your birth, a series of happy years and the continuance of the health which you now enjoy?”
He offered her a huge bouquet of choice flowers which were rare in Saumur; then, taking the heiress by the elbows, he kissed her on each side of her neck with a complacency that made her blush. The president, who looked like a rusty iron nail, felt that his courtship was progressing.
“Don’t stand on ceremony,” said Grandet, entering. “How well you do things on fete-days, Monsieur le president!”
“When it concerns mademoiselle,” said the abbe, armed with his own bouquet, “every day is a fete-day for my nephew.”
The abbe kissed Eugenie’s hand. As for Maitre Cruchot, he boldly kissed her on both cheeks, remarking: “How we sprout up, to be sure! Every year is twelve months.”
As he replaced the candlestick beside the clock, Grandet, who never forgot his own jokes, and repeated them to satiety when he thought them funny, said,—