She raised her head and flashed out: “She sees my father. She lives with him in the same house. Why shouldn’t she see me?”
“Tiens, tiens, my little Félise,” said Bigourdin soothingly. “There is no need for you to consult your mother. Both your father and your mother have a long while ago decided that you should marry Lucien. Do you think I would take a step of which they did not approve?”
“A long while ago is not to-day,” sobbed Félise. “I want to talk to my mother.”
Bigourdin walked across the salon, with his back to her, and snapped his fingers in peculiar agitation, and muttered below his breath: “Nom de Dieu, de nom de Dieu, de nom de Dieu!” Kindest-hearted of mortals though he was, he resented the bottom being knocked out of his scheme of social existence. For years he had looked forward to this alliance with the Viriots. Personally he had nothing to gain: on the contrary, he stood to lose the services of Félise and a hundred thousand francs. But he had set his heart on it, and so had the Viriots. To go to them and say, “My niece refuses to marry your son,” would be a slash of the whip across their faces. His failure to bring up a young girl in the proper sentiments would be a disgrace to him in the eyes of the community. He felt hurt, too, because he no longer sufficed her; she wanted her mother; and it was out of the question that she should go to her mother. No wonder he swore to himself softly.
“But, mon Dieu,” said he, turning round. “What have you against Lucien?”
Whereupon they went over all the argument again. She did not love Lucien. She didn’t want to marry Lucien. She would not marry a man she did not love.
“Then you will die an old maid,” said Bigourdin. “An old maid, figure-toi! It would be terrible!”
Félise sniffed at such terrors. Bigourdin, in desperation, asked what he was to tell the Viriots. “The truth,” said Félise. But what was the truth?
“Tell me, my little Félise,” said he, gently, “there is, by chance, no one else?”
Then Félise waxed indignant and routed the unhappy man. She gave him to understand that she was a jeune fille bien élevée and was not in the habit of behaving like a kitchenmaid. It was cruel and insulting to accuse her of clandestine love-affairs. And Bigourdin, bound by his honourable conventions, knew that she was justified in her resentment. Again he plucked at his bristles, scared by the spectacle of outraged maidenhood. The tender-eyed dove had become a flashing little eagle. A wilier man than he might have suspected the over-protesting damsel. Woman-like, she pressed her advantage.