Part 6 (2/2)

”The account was ready,” said his father; ”here it is. I will write the letter.”

Christophe took the bill and put it in his pocket.

”But at any rate you will sup with us,” said the goodman. ”In this extremity you and the Lallier girl must exchange rings.”

”Well, I will go to fetch her,” cried Christophe.

The young man feared some indecision in his father, whose character he did not thoroughly appreciate; he went up to his room, dressed, took out a small trunk, stole downstairs, and placed it with his cloak and rapier under a counter in the shop.

”What the devil are you about?” asked his father, hearing him there.

”I do not want any one to see my preparations for leaving; I have put everything under the counter,” he whispered in reply.

”And here is the letter,” said his father.

Christophe took the paper, and went out as if to fetch their neighbor.

A few moments after Christophe had gone out, old Lallier and his daughter came in, preceded by a woman-servant carrying three bottles of old wine.

”Well, and where is Christophe?” asked the furrier and his wife.

”Christophe?” said Babette; ”we have not seen him.”

”A pretty rogue is my son!” cried Lecamus. ”He tricks me as if I had no beard. Why, old gossip, what will come to us? We live in times when the children are all too clever for their fathers!”

”But he has long been regarded by all the neighbors as a mad follower of Colas,” said Lallier.

”Defend him stoutly on that score,” said the furrier to the goldsmith.

”Youth is foolish, and runs after anything new; but Babette will keep him quiet, she is even newer than Calvin.”

Babette smiled. She truly loved Christophe, was affronted by everything that was ever said against him. She was a girl of the good old middle-cla.s.s type, brought up under her mother's eye, for she had never left her; her demeanor was as gentle and precise as her features; she was dressed in stuff of harmonious tones of gray; her ruff, plainly pleated, was a contrast by its whiteness to her sober gown; on her head was a black velvet cap, like a child's hood in shape, but trimmed, on each side of her face, with frills and ends of tan-colored gauze. Though she was fair-haired, with a white skin, she seemed cunning and crafty, though trying to hide her wiliness under the expression of a simple and honest girl.

As long as the two women remained in the room, coming to and fro to lay the cloth, and place the jugs, the large pewter dishes, and the knives and forks, the goldsmith and his daughter, the furrier and his wife, sat in front of the high chimney-place, hung with red serge and black fringes, talking of nothing. It was in vain that Babette asked where Christophe could be; the young Huguenot's father and mother made ambiguous replies; but as soon as the party had sat down to their meal, and the two maids were in the kitchen, Lecamus said to his future daughter-in-law:

”Christophe is gone to the Court.”

”To Blois! What a journey to take without saying good-bye to me!” said Babette.

”He was in a great hurry,” said his old mother.

”Old friend,” said the furrier to Lallier, taking up the thread of the conversation, ”we are going to see hot work in France; the Reformers are astir.”

”If they win the day, it will only be after long fighting, which will be very bad for trade,” said Lallier, incapable of looking higher than the commercial point of view.

”My father, who had seen the end of the wars between the Bourguignons and the Armagnacs, told me that our family would never have lived through them if one of his grandfathers--his mother's father--had not been one of the Goix, the famous butchers at the Halle, who were attached to the Bourguignons, while the other, a Lecamus, was on the side of the Armagnacs; they pretended to be ready to flay each other before the outer world, but at home they were very good friends. So we will try to save Christophe.

Perhaps a time may come when he will save us.”

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