While Master Hugonnet was speaking, Landry played with his moustache, but did not frown.
"I know all that," he said at last, when his friend paused to take a drink. "Well! what then?"
"Well! I myself seize every opportunity that presents itself to provide my daughter with a little pleasure; for Ambroisine deserves it! The wench keeps my house in fine shape! she has brains and activity and character! She's a good girl, I tell you, and doesn't let the coxcombs and gallants, no, nor the grands seigneurs themselves,—and many of them come to my shop, God knows!—talk nonsense to her. When they try to be too free in their manners with Ambroisine—jernidié! she has a tongue and nails, and a stout fist. You should see how she makes them dance!"
"She does well. But what then?"
"Why, to-morrow is the ceremony of the Fire of Saint-Jean on Place de Grève; Ambroisine has never seen it, so she asked me to take her there, and I promised; but she told me, too, that she would be much happier if her young friend Bathilde could come with us, because she knew it would be a great pleasure for your daughter, who—who—who has none too many! You see, comrade, it isn't right to work all the time and never have any amusement; on the contrary, when one is young is when one should enjoy one's self. We old fellows still make merry once in a way, when we have an opportunity; and then, after all, where's the harm in a young girl having a little amusement, when it's with the knowledge of her parents and under their eyes? To cut it short, comrade, the purpose of all this is to ask you to confide your daughter Bathilde to me to-morrow, in the latter part of the afternoon, so that I may take her with Ambroisine to see the Fire of Saint-Jean; unless you will come with us, which would be much better."
As he listened to this request from his old friend, the ex-trooper's brow became clouded, and he caressed his gray moustache for a long while before replying:
"But, you see, I promised Ragonde not to let Bathilde go out."
"Alone! I understand that; but won't she be as safe with me and my daughter as with you? Come, come! jernidié! let us not be so strict with our children; if our parents had always been so with us, it wouldn't have tended to make us worship them."
"Well!" Landry said at last, after a moment's hesitation; "come to-morrow and fetch Bathilde; I will try to join you later."
You know now by what concatenation of circumstances Bathilde found herself on Ambroisine's arm on the square where the Fire of Saint-Jean was to be celebrated.