“And besides these?” said Berthe.
“The girl must be pretty, and well brought up. I must tell you, my dear,” continued the lady, with a sort of diffidence as if conscious that she was about to state some ludicrous or damaging fact, “that the mother-in-law is very pious, and she holds very much to having a daughter-in-law who is so also. Otherwise she is the best woman in the world, very intelligent, and will do all in her power to make her son’s wife happy.”
“And the son himself? You have not said much about him. How far does he pledge himself to the same end?”
“Ah! there is the difficulty!” said Madame de Beaucœur. “Unfortunately he won’t hear of being married at all. The moment his mother speaks of it, he either turns it off in a joke, or, if she insists, he gets into a tantrum, flies out of the house, and she doesn’t see him for a week. You can fancy how this complicates the matter for her, poor woman!”
“It certainly is a complication,” observed Berthe.
“And it makes it all the more incumbent on us to try and help her,” resumed the envoy. “So I have come to enlist your offices in her behalf. I promised her she might count on you, chère amie. Did I promise too much?”
“If you promised her that I would marry her son for her, nolens volens, you decidedly did,” answered Berthe, laughing ironically.
“Oh! I did not go that length,” protested Madame de Beaucœur, nettled, but laughing heartily to hide her pique. “I only said that you were more likely than any other woman in Paris to know the girl who united all these conditions, and that, if you knew her, you would give Madame de Chassedot an opportunity of meeting her.”
“And how about Madame Chassedot meeting her?” demanded Berthe perversely. “After all, the contracting powers must look each other in the face at least once before they are brought to swear eternal love and duty before Monsieur le Maire, and if this inconvenient young man flies out the room at the bare mention of such a catastrophe—dear madame, I have the highest opinion of your diplomatic powers, but, believe me, this enterprise is beyond their compass.”
“Leave that to his mother,” said Madame de Beaucœur. “She is equal to it. If you find the missing element, and give her a chance of managing it, the issue is certain.”