“About madame’s not choosing that la Peyrade should marry her goddaughter; and out of spite, to prevent the marriage, she refused to give anything in the contract.”
“Come, be calm,” said Thuillier, not disturbed himself, the admission of the “Echo” into the polemic making another Pangloss of him. “I’ll settle all that.”
“You, Flavie,” said Brigitte, when Thuillier had departed to his wife, “you will do me the pleasure to go down to your own apartment, and tell Mademoiselle Celeste that I don’t choose to see her now, because if she made me any irritating answer I might box her ears. You’ll tell her that I don’t like conspiracies; that she was left at liberty to choose Monsieur Phellion junior if she wanted him, and she did not want him; that the matter is now all arranged, and that if she does not wish to see her ‘dot’ reduced to what you are able to give her, which isn’t as much as a bank-messenger could carry in his waistcoat pocket—”
“But, my dear Brigitte,” interrupted Flavie, turning upon her at this impertinence, “you may dispense with reminding us in this harsh way of our poverty; for, after all, we have never asked you for anything, and we pay our rent punctually; and as for the ‘dot,’ Monsieur Felix Phellion is quite ready to take Celeste with no more than a bank-messenger could carry in his bag.”
And she emphasized the last word by her way of pronouncing it.
“Ha! so you too are going to meddle in this, are you?” cried Brigitte. “Very good; go and fetch him, your Felix. I know, my little woman, that this marriage has never suited you; it IS disagreeable to be nothing more than a mother to your son-in-law.”
Flavie had recovered the coolness she had lost for an instant, and without replying to this speech she merely shrugged her shoulders.
At this moment Thuillier returned; his air of beatitude had deserted him.
“My dear Brigitte,” he said to his sister, “you have a most excellent heart, but at times you are so violent—”
“Ho!” said the old maid, “am I to be arraigned on this side too?”