So that Madame Germeuil readily decided to give her Adeline to Edouard Murville.
“This young man will make my daughter happy,” she said to herself; “he has not much strength of character; very good! then my dear child will be the mistress, and households where the wives rule are often the best conducted.”
And that is why there was a wedding party at the Cadran-Bleu.
II
GREAT EVENTS CAUSED BY A JIG AND A SNUFF BOX
“How pretty she is! What a fine figure she has! What charm and freshness!” said the young men, and even the fathers, to one another, as they watched the bride and followed her every motion when she danced. “Ah! what a lucky fellow that Edouard is!”
Such was the general opinion.
Edouard heard all this; he was in fact as happy as a man can be when he is on the point of becoming entirely happy. To conceal his desires, his impatience, he skipped and danced about, and did not keep still one minute. From time to time he went into the corridor to consult his watch; it was still too early—not for him! but he must spare his wife’s blushes; and what would the company say; what would his wife’s mother say? Well! he must wait; oh! how long that day had been! Poor husband and wife! It is the brightest day in all your lives, and yet you wish that it were already passed! Man is never content.
“The bridegroom looks to be very much in love!” said all the married ladies; the unmarried ones did not say so, but they thought it.
“Ah! Monsieur Volenville, that is the way you looked at me twenty-two years ago,” said, with a sigh, to her husband, a lady of forty-five, overladen with rouge, flowers, laces and ribbons, who sat in a corner of the ball-room, where she had been waiting in vain since dinner for a partner to present himself. Monsieur Volenville, formerly a frequent attendant at the balls at Sceaux, and now an auctioneer in the Marais, did not answer his wife, but took a pinch of snuff and went into the next room to watch a game of écarté.
Madame Volenville testily changed her place, which she had done already several times. She placed herself between two young women, hoping apparently that that side of the room would be invited in a body, and that she would thus be included in the dancers. But her hope was disappointed once more; she saw young men coming toward her, she nodded her head gracefully, smiled, and put out her foot, which was not unshapely. They approached; but oh, woe! they addressed themselves to her right or to her left, and seemed to pay no attention to her and her soft glances and her pretty foot.