Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows, stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
“Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not? You seem changed.”
Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went back into the house without replying.
“She is cross,” said Minoret to the abbe.
“Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold of her door,” said the abbe; “she is too young—”
“Oh!” said Goupil. “I am told she doesn’t lack lovers.”
The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des Bourgeois.
“Well,” said Goupil to Minoret, “the thing is working. Did you notice how pale she was. Within a fortnight she’ll have left the town—you’ll see.”
“Better have you for a friend than an enemy,” cried Minoret, frightened at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil’s face the diabolical expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
“I should think so!” returned Goupil. “If she doesn’t marry me I’ll make her die of grief.”