He departed. As soon as he had shut the door Eugenie and her mother breathed more freely. Until this morning the young girl had never felt constrained in the presence of her father; but for the last few hours every moment wrought a change in her feelings and ideas.
“Mamma, how many louis are there in a cask of wine?”
“Your father sells his from a hundred to a hundred and fifty francs, sometimes two hundred,—at least, so I’ve heard say.”
“Then papa must be rich?”
“Perhaps he is. But Monsieur Cruchot told me he bought Froidfond two years ago; that may have pinched him.”
Eugenie, not being able to understand the question of her father’s fortune, stopped short in her calculations.
“He didn’t even see me, the darling!” said Nanon, coming back from her errand. “He’s stretched out like a calf on his bed and crying like the Madeleine, and that’s a blessing! What’s the matter with the poor dear young man!”
“Let us go and console him, mamma; if any one knocks, we can come down.”
Madame Grandet was helpless against the sweet persuasive tones of her daughter’s voice. Eugenie was sublime: she had become a woman. The two, with beating hearts, went up to Charles’s room. The door was open. The young man heard and saw nothing; plunged in grief, he only uttered inarticulate cries.
“How he loves his father!” said Eugenie in a low voice.