"Oh, sir, you speak like an angel from heaven. But my daughter? Oh, my daughter! She will not be able to love me any more. She will loathe me."
"Make your mind easy on that score, madam. Nobody has ever disparaged you in your daughter's hearing; and Fanny is much too generous to spurn her mother in adversity. I'll take you home with me, for I have sent her into the country to be out of harm's way. There she lives with a kinswoman of her father's—a somewhat severe personage, I admit; but I'll reconcile her to you."
"Oh, sir, I don't expect that Teresa will raise
me up to her level, but I shall be content to be her servant, her kitchen-wench, if only my daughter be about me."
"What nonsense you are talking, my worthy woman!" blurted out honest Boltay, awkwardly. "I've servants enough of my own, so there's no need for my ward to do manual labour. In half an hour we will set out together, and just leave the rest to me."
Mrs. Meyer would thereupon have kissed Mr. Boltay's boots again, but the worthy man escaped from the sentimental creature in time, and employed the half-hour during which he was absent from her in scouring about the slop-shops and collecting all sorts of ready-made garments, and returned home with a complete suit, which Mrs. Meyer, despite her lady-like squeamishness, was obliged to put on instead of her disgraceful rags.
And here I may mention, lest any of my readers should be blessed with as strong a credulity as Mr. Boltay, that there was not one word of truth in the tragic monologue above described. Mrs. Meyer had not fallen out with her daughters; they had not turned her adrift; there was no need for her to leap into the Danube. The matter stood simply thus: Abellino, since his late rebuffs, had, full of passionate frenzy, plunged deeper and deeper into his unsuccessful enterprise. He had just demanded from Monsieur Griffard the last hundred thousand florins of the second million promised to him. Abellino was constantly attended by a spy in the service of the genial banker, who had immediately hastened to acquaint his principals in Paris with the latest tidings from Kárpátfalva, notably of what had happened on the night of Squire John's birthday. Monsieur Griffard, learning that Squire John was at the last gasp, had sent Abellino not one, but two hundred thousand florins, for which, of course, he was naturally expected to pay back
as much again at the proper time. A few days later, he learnt, from a second letter, that the uncle was still alive, and likely to live; but, by that time, the money was well on its way, and reached Abellino punctually, to his great delight.
So now he had a hundred thousand more florins than he had reckoned upon, and at such times a man is apt to feel confident. He therefore concocted a little scheme whereby Mrs. Meyer (the girl's own mother!) should artfully worm her way into the Boltay family, so as to get at her last daughter, and—we know the rest!
She was to have sixty thousand florins down if the plan succeeded. "Is it possible!" you will cry. Yes, quite possible. Say not that I paint monsters; it is life that I describe.