“The day before yesterday. Of course I was the first to hear of it, and we spent yesterday evening together. It may surprise you, Mouillard, and you may think I exaggerate, but I think Jeanne has come back prettier than she went.”
“Do you really think so?”
“I really do. That southern sun—look out, my dear Mouillard, your line is half out of water—has brought back her roses (they’re brighter than ever, I declare), and the good spirits she had lost, too, poor girl. She is cheerful again now, as she used to be. I was very anxious about her at one time. You know her sad story?”
“Yes.”
“The fellow was a scoundrel, my dear Mouillard, a regular scoundrel! I never was in favor of the match, myself. Charnot let himself be drawn into it by an old college friend. I told him over and over again, ‘It’s Jeanne’s dowry he’s after, Charnot—I’m convinced of it. He’ll treat Jeanne badly and make her miserable, mark my words.’ But I wasted my breath; he wouldn’t listen to a word. Anyhow, it’s quite off now. But it was no slight shock, I can tell you; and it gave me great pain to witness the poor child’s sufferings.”
“You are so kind-hearted, Monsieur Flamaran!”
“It’s not that, Mouillard; but I have known Jeanne ever since she was born. I watched her grow up, and I loved her when she was still a little mite; she’s as good as my adoptive daughter. You understand me when I say adoptive. I do not mean that there exists between us that legal bond in imitation of nature which is permitted by our codes—‘adoptio imitatur naturam’; not that, but that I love her like a daughter—Sidonie never having presented me with a daughter, nor with a son either, for that matter.”
A cry from Jupille interrupted M. Flamaran:
“Can’t you hear it rattle?”
The good man was tearing to us, waving his arms like a madman, the folds of his trousers flapping about his thin legs like banners in the wind.