"That or something like it. A child eats so little!"
"But food isn't the only thing it needs. When it grows up, its education must be attended to, mustn't it? and then, it must be apprenticed and taught a trade. It must know how to earn its living, so that it can help its mother when the time comes."
"Oh! tra la la! there's no reason why you shouldn't go on! Why don't you ask me at once to buy a substitute for him if it's a boy, or to give her a dowry if it's a girl?"
"Why, that would be no more than right!"
"Didn't I tell you, mademoiselle, that you demanded a fortune?"
"No, monsieur, you exaggerate. For it seems to me—yes, let us suppose that there's a boy to be brought up—I am inclined to think that with twelve thousand francs it might be done."
"Twelve thousand francs!"—And Monsieur de Mardeille jumped so high that his head nearly struck the ceiling.—"Twelve thousand francs!" he repeated. "Do you think that that is nothing, mademoiselle?"
"I think that it is no more than is necessary to make a child into a man. Why, by putting that sum in the savings bank at once, one would have a little income, which would keep increasing. Oh! you may be sure, monsieur, that the mother would keep nothing for herself; but she would at least be at ease with respect to her child's future."
"And as she would use none of that little income for herself, she would still have to be supported, I suppose?"
"Oh! no, monsieur! That sum, once given, would be the whole; she would accept nothing more."