“Yes, father.”
She soon came, after reassuring her mother.
“My daughter,” said Grandet, “you will now tell me what you have done with your gold.”
“My father, if you make me presents of which I am not the sole mistress, take them back,” she answered coldly, picking up the napoleon from the chimney-piece and offering it to him.
Grandet seized the coin and slipped it into his breeches’ pocket.
“I shall certainly never give you anything again. Not so much as that!” he said, clicking his thumb-nail against a front tooth. “Do you dare to despise your father? have you no confidence in him? Don’t you know what a father is? If he is nothing for you, he is nothing at all. Where is your gold?”
“Father, I love and respect you, in spite of your anger; but I humbly ask you to remember that I am twenty-three years old. You have told me often that I have attained my majority, and I do not forget it. I have used my money as I chose to use it, and you may be sure that it was put to a good use—”
“What use?”
“That is an inviolable secret,” she answered. “Have you no secrets?”
“I am the head of the family; I have my own affairs.”