"Poor girl!" said the Abbe de Sponde. "When a great misfortune happens, charity, which is divine love, and as blind as pagan love, ought not to look into the causes of it. Niece, you are president of the Maternity Society; you must succor that poor girl, who will now find it difficult to marry."
"Poor child!" ejaculated Mademoiselle Cormon.
"Do you suppose du Bousquier would marry her?" asked the judge.
"If he is an honorable man he ought to do so," said Madame Granson; "but really, to tell the truth, my dog has better morals than he—"
"Azor is, however, a good purveyor," said the recorder of mortgages, with the air of saying a witty thing.
At dessert du Bousquier was still the topic of conversation, having given rise to various little jokes which the wine rendered sparkling. Following the example of the recorder, each guest capped his neighbor's joke with another: Du Bousquier was a father, but not a confessor; he was father less; he was father LY; he was not a reverend father; nor yet a conscript-father—
"Nor can he be a foster-father," said the Abbe de Sponde, with a gravity which stopped the laughter.
"Nor a noble father," added the chevalier.
The Church and the nobility descended thus into the arena of puns, without, however, losing their dignity.
"Hush!" exclaimed the recorder of mortgages. "I hear the creaking of du Bousquier's boots."