Madame named a sum which certainly staggered the old man.
"Thou must be très riche," he said.
"Ah, oui, it is the will of God!" replied Madame. Then she added, stroking his silvery hair and laying her piquant face close to his. "Dost thou not remember, thou superb, angelic one, that on the day we received la Comtesse, a notary came and settled on her the sum I have mentioned?"
"Ah, oui," answered M. le Comte. "I remember and yet I forget. The aged, they always forget. It is the trial of old age not to remember."
"It is un fait accompli," said Madame. "Fret not thyself, chère Alphonse."
The old Comte smiled.
"I like to think of our little one," he said, "always and ever surrounded by the luxuries of life. When she is older, much older, we will marry her to a man, young and beautiful and of great rank. She is worthy of the best and she shall have the best."
"Mais oui, mais oui," answered Madame.
"But I have been thinking," pursued M. le Comte, "that her education is not progressing. We could not permit her to return to the school, where that ugly M'selle was taught to tell the black lies."