Ange Pitou by Alexandre Dumas part three

Every one of these words, which bore the accent of truth, penetrated the heart of the housekeeper; and so excellent was her nature that instead of allowing the jealousy she had at first naturally felt to become more bitter, or her anger to become more violent, the certainty of her diminution in importance appeared to make her more resigned, more obedient, and more convinced of the infallibility of her husband’s judgment.

Was it possible that Billot could be mistaken? Was it possible to disobey Billot?

These were the only two arguments which the worthy woman used to convince herself.

And her resistance at once ceased.

She looked at her daughter, in whose eyes she saw only modesty, confidence, the desire to succeed, unalterable tenderness and respect. She yielded absolutely.

“Monsieur Billot is right,” she said; “Catherine is young; she has a good head,—she is even headstrong.”

“Oh, yes,” said Pitou, certain that he had flattered the self-love of Catherine at the same time that he indulged in an epigram at her expense.

“Catherine,” continued Dame Billot, “will be more at her ease than I should be upon the road. She will better look after the laborers for whole days than I could. She will sell better; she will make more advantageous purchases; she will know how to make herself obeyed.”

Catherine smiled.

“Well, then,” continued the good woman, without even being compelled to make an effort to restrain a sigh, “here is our Catherine who is going to have all her own way: she will run about as she pleases; she will now have the command of the purse; now she will always be seen upon the roads; my daughter, in short, transformed into a lad!”

“You need be under no apprehension for Mademoiselle Catherine,” said Pitou, with a self-sufficient air; “I am here, and I will accompany her wherever she goes.”

This gracious offer, on which Ange perhaps calculated to produce an effect, produced so strange a look on the part of Catherine that he was quite confused.

The young girl blushed,—not as women do when anything agreeable has been said to them, but with a sort of double feeling of anger and impatience, evincing at once a desire to speak and the necessity of remaining silent.

Pitou was not a man of the world, and therefore could not appreciate these shades of feeling.

But having comprehended that Catherine’s blushing was not a perfect acquiescence:—

“What!” said he, with an agreeable smile, which displayed his powerful teeth under his thick lips, “what! you say not a word, Mademoiselle Catherine?”

“You are not aware, then, Monsieur Pitou, that you have uttered a stupidity?”

“A stupidity!” exclaimed the lover.

“Assuredly!” cried Dame Billot, “to think of my daughter Catherine going about with a body-guard.”

“But, in short, in the woods,” said Pitou, with an air so ingenuously conscientious that it would have been a crime to laugh at him.

“Is that also in the instructions of our good man?” continued Dame Billot, who thus evinced a certain disposition for epigram.

“Oh!” added Catherine, “that would be too indolent a profession, which neither my father would have advised Monsieur Pitou to adopt, nor would Monsieur Pitou have accepted it.”

Pitou rolled his large and terrified eyes from Catherine to Dame Billot; the whole scaffolding of his building was giving way.

Catherine, as a true woman, at once comprehended the painful disappointment of Pitou.

“Monsieur Pitou,” said she, “was it at Paris that you have seen young girls compromising their reputations in this way, by always dragging young men after them?”

“But you are not a young girl, you,” stammered Pitou, “since you are the mistress of the house.”

“Come, come! we have talked enough for to-night,” abruptly said Dame Billot; “the mistress of the house has much to do. Come, Catherine, let me install you in the management, according to your father’s orders.”

Then was commenced, before the astounded eyes of Pitou, a ceremony that was not deficient in grandeur nor in poetry, from its rustic simplicity.

Dame Billot drew her keys from off the bunch, one by one, and delivered them to Catherine, giving her a list of the linen, of the furniture, the provisions, and the contents of the cellars. She conducted her daughter to the old secretary, or bureau, made of mahogany inlaid with ivory and ebony, somewhere about the year 1738 or 1740, in the secret drawer of which Father Billot locked up his most valuable papers, his golden louis, and all the treasures and archives of the family.

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