Part 11 (1/2)
The daughter brought the conversation back to the subject of discussion.
There were nineteen days yet allowed them. G.o.d knows--by the expiration of that time they might be able to pay. With the two music scholars whom she then had and three more whom she had some hope to get, she made bold to say they could pay the rent.
”Ah, Clotilde, my child,” exclaimed Aurore, with sudden brightness, ”you don't need a mask and costume to resemble your great-grandmother, the casket-girl!” Aurore felt sure, on her part, that with the one embroidery scholar then under her tutelage, and the three others who had declined to take lessons, they could easily pay the rent--and how kind it was of Monsieur, the aged father of that one embroidery scholar, to procure those invitations to the ball! The dear old man! He said he must see one more ball before he should die.
Aurore looked so pretty in the reverie into which she fell that her daughter was content to admire her silently.
”Clotilde,” said the mother, presently looking up, ”do you remember the evening you treated me so ill?”
The daughter smiled at the preposterous charge.
”I did not treat you ill.”
”Yes, don't you know--the evening you made me lose my purse?”
”Certainly, I know!” The daughter took her foot from the andiron; her eyes lighted up aggressively. ”For losing your purse blame yourself. For the way you found it again--which was far worse--thank Palmyre. If you had not asked her to find it and shared the gold with her we could have returned with it to 'Sieur Frowenfel'; but now we are ashamed to let him see us. I do not doubt he filled the purse.”
”He? He never knew it was empty. It was n.o.body who filled it. Palmyre says that Papa Lebat--”
”Ha!” exclaimed Clotilde at this superst.i.tious mention.
The mother tossed her head and turned her back, swallowing the unendurable bitterness of being rebuked by her daughter. But the cloud hung over but a moment.
”Clotilde,” she said, a minute after, turning with a look of sun-bright resolve, ”I am going to see him.”
”To see whom?” asked the other, looking back from the window, whither she had gone to recover from a reactionary trembling.
”To whom, my child? Why--”
”You do not expect mercy from Honore Grandissime? You would not ask it?”
”No. There is no mercy in the Grandissime blood; but cannot I demand justice? Ha! it is justice that I shall demand!”
”And you will really go and see him?”
”You will see, Mademoiselle,” replied Aurore, dropping a broom with which she had begun to sweep up some spilled b.u.t.tons.
”And I with you?”
”No! To a counting-room? To the presence of the chief of that detestable race? No!”
”But you don't know where his office is.”
”Anybody can tell me.”
Preparation began at once. By and by--
”Clotilde.”
Clotilde was stooping behind her mother, with a ribbon between her lips, arranging a flounce.