“But suppose that your father’s estate were within a few days to be declared bankrupt?”
“Monsieur, in a few days I shall be called the Comte d’Aubrion; you will understand, therefore, that what you threaten is of no consequence to me. Besides, you know as well as I do that when a man has an income of a hundred thousand francs his father has never failed.” So saying, he politely edged Monsieur des Grassins to the door.
At the beginning of August in the same year, Eugenie was sitting on the little wooden bench where her cousin had sworn to love her eternally, and where she usually breakfasted if the weather were fine. The poor girl was happy, for the moment, in the fresh and joyous summer air, letting her memory recall the great and the little events of her love and the catastrophes which had followed it. The sun had just reached the angle of the ruined wall, so full of chinks, which no one, through a caprice of the mistress, was allowed to touch, though Cornoiller often remarked to his wife that “it would fall and crush somebody one of these days.” At this moment the postman knocked, and gave a letter to Madame Cornoiller, who ran into the garden, crying out:
“Mademoiselle, a letter!” She gave it to her mistress, adding, “Is it the one you expected?”
The words rang as loudly in the heart of Eugenie as they echoed in sound from wall to wall of the court and garden.
“Paris—from him—he has returned!”
Eugenie turned pale and held the letter for a moment. She trembled so violently that she could not break the seal. La Grande Nanon stood before her, both hands on her hips, her joy puffing as it were like smoke through the cracks of her brown face.
“Read it, mademoiselle!”
“Ah, Nanon, why did he return to Paris? He went from Saumur.”