Nini completed the old advocate’s sentence for him:
“... A big ’un that’ll make him see I’m not just exactly an angel come down from heaven with her crown of orange blossom on her head, all ready to fall into his arms; eh, Père Moche, isn’t that what makes you sweat?”
But Moche knew better; he gave the child a friendly tap on her rosy cheek: “No, not really, mind you; I’m not a bit afraid, you’re a deal too artful to give yourself away,” and looking admiringly at the girl, he added:
“It wouldn’t take much more to take me in, too, with your modest, virtuous air, and those great innocent eyes of yours!”
But next moment M. Moche turned serious.
“Attention!” he cried, “steady! here comes the pigeon; stand by to blush, niece!”
“Never you fear, dear uncle,” replied Nini, biting her lips not to burst out laughing.
Thereupon Ascott appeared at the door of the omnibus office; the young Englishman might have stepped out of a bandbox, smart, elegant, freshly shaved, and carrying in his arms an enormous bunch of flowers!
The complicated plot arranged some days beforehand by old Moche seemed to be working out under the most favourable auspices. He had introduced his bogus niece to the rich young Englishman at a highly opportune moment, just when Ascott, chagrined at having paid assiduous court to the Princess Sonia Danidoff, only to see the latter prefer to himself the latest recruit to her band of admirers, the American stranger, the detective, Tom Bob, who, from the first moment of his arrival in France, had worn in all men’s eyes an aureole of glory and success. Moved less by love than by a sort of obstinacy, Ascott had indeed striven to contend against this adversary, but events had occurred so rapidly and so much in favour of his rival that the wealthy Englishman, in spite of being the first in the field and the first accredited suitor for the princess’s hand, had been forced to take second place. For was it not, in fact, this same Tom Bob again who, forty-eight hours earlier, had rescued the unfortunate Sonia Danidoff from a terrible and almost certain death? Evidently the detective had not succeeded in saving the princess’s jewels, but he had saved her life, and swore to protect her against the mysterious and terrible attacks of the ever elusive and enigmatic scoundrel, who seemed especially bent on her destruction.
Wounded in his self-love and baulked in his passion, the young Englishman had quickly come to his senses, and this the more readily from the fact that, as his love for Sonia Danidoff cooled more and more, he felt his heart more and more stirred and charmed by a youthful passion for the pretty child he supposed to be niece of the old moneylender, the grotesque M. Moche. Moreover, startled by the indignant refusal his first audacious proposal had provoked, Ascott had immediately realized that this was not the right way to deal with the old business man. In fact, when he accompanied Nini on her leaving the house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau, he had also seen pretty clearly that the latter, good, obedient girl as she was, must needs entertain the highest respect for her uncle. So he had wisely told himself how desirable it was in the first place to win the old man’s favour in order to secure the child’s good graces.