“Of most excellent family,” affirmed the uncle. “Imagine something stupidly chaste. A mere chance. She submitted quite innocently. She has no idea of anything even now.”
Gueulin listened to him in surprise; then, making a skeptical gesture, murmured:
“What? you know!” said Bachelard angrily. “You know nothing at all, my little fellow; no one knows anything. She is for yours truly. She is neither to be seen nor touched. Hands off!” And, turning to Duveyrier, he added:
“You will understand, sir, you who have feeling. It affects me so much going there, that when I come away I feel quite young again. In short, it is a cozy little nook for me, where I can recruit myself after all those hussies. And, if you only knew, she is so polite and so fresh, with a skin like a flower, and a figure not in the least thin, sir, but as round and firm as a peach!”
The counselor’s red blotches were almost bleeding through the rush of blood to his face. Trublot and Gueulin looked at the uncle; and they felt a desire to slap him as they beheld him with his set of false teeth, which were too white, and at the corners of which the saliva trickled.
Bachelard became quite tender-hearted, and resumed, licking the brim of his liquor glass with the tip of his tongue:
“After all, my sole dream is to make the child happy! But there, my pot-belly tells me I am getting old; I’m like a father to her. I give you my word! if I found a very good young fellow, I’d give her to him, oh! in marriage, not otherwise.”
“You would make two happy ones,” murmured Duveyrier sentimentally.
It was almost stifling in the small apartment. A glass of chartreuse that had been upset had made the tablecloth all sticky, and it was also covered with cigar-ash. The gentlemen were in want of some fresh air.
“Would you like to see her?” abruptly asked the uncle, rising from his seat.
They consulted one another with a glance. Well, yes, they were willing, if it could afford him any pleasure; and their affected indifference hid a gluttonous satisfaction at the thought of going and finishing their dessert with the old fellow’s little one.
“Let’s get along, uncle! Which is the way?”
Bachelard became quite grave again, tortured by his ridiculously vain longing to exhibit Fifi, and by his terror of being robbed of her. For a moment he looked to the left, then to the right, in an anxious way. At length he boldly said: