"That will just suit you!" cried Desire to Goupil. "But do you think you can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?"
"In these days," whispered Zelie again in Massin's year, "notaries look out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula just to get the old man's business?"
"I am sure of him," said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, "because I hold something over him," but he withheld the words.
"I am quite of Dionis's opinion," he said aloud.
"So am I," cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with the clerk.
"My wife has voted!" said the post master, sipping his brandy, though his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a notable quantity of liquids.
"And very properly," remarked the collector.
"I shall go and see the doctor after dinner," said Dionis.
"If Monsieur Dionis's advice is good," said Madame Cremiere to Madame Massin, "we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us."
"Yes, and be received as he received us!" cried Zelie. "Minoret and I have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don't know how to write prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he--I can tell him that!"
"As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year," said Madame Massin, rather piqued, "I don't want to lose ten thousand."
"We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we shall see how things are going," said Madame Cremiere; "you'll thank us some day, cousin."
"Treat Ursula kindly," said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to the level of his lips; "remember old Jordy left her his savings."
"You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer in Paris, could have done," said Goupil to his patron as they left the post-house.
"And now they are quarreling over my fee," replied the notary, smiling bitterly.
The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de Portenduere on his arm.
"She dragged him to vespers, see!" cried Madame Massin to Madame Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the church.
"Let us go and speak to him," said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old man.
The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference) did not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated affection and forced smiles.
"Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?" said Madame Cremiere. "We feared sometimes we were in your way--but it is such a long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are old enough now to make dear Ursula's acquaintance."
"Ursula is a little bear, like her name," replied the doctor.
"Let us tame her," said Madame Massin. "And besides, uncle," added the good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy, "they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her music-master for our children. If there were six or eight scholars in a class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means."
"Certainly," said the old man, "and it will be all the better for me because I want to give Ursula a singing-master."
"Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to see you; he is now a lawyer."
"Yes, to-night," echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these petty souls.
The two nieces pressed Ursula's hand, saying, with affected eagerness, "Au revoir."
"Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!" cried Ursula, giving him a grateful look.
"You are going to have a voice," he said; "and I shall give you masters of drawing and Italian also. A woman," added the doctor, looking at Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, "ought to be educated to the height of every position in which her marriage may place her."
Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather's thoughts evidently turned in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him, she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a distance like a blue and white flower.
"Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes, they were very kind," she repeated as he approached her, to change the thoughts that made him pensive.
"Poor little girl!" cried the old man.
He laid Ursula's hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to the terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
"Why do you say, 'Poor little girl'?"
"Don't you see how they fear you?"
"Fear me,--why?"
"My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of their inheritance to enrich you."
"But you won't do that?" said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
"Oh, divine consolation of my old age!" said the doctor, taking his godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. "It was for her and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!
--You will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and prolong my life; they are longing for my death."
"God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is-- Ah! I despise them!" exclaimed Ursula.
"Dinner is ready!" called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
