“What? you can’t marry me?” “Oh! as for that, no; I have engagements.” “With Mademoiselle Armande or Mademoiselle Cormon, who have both refused you? Listen to me, Monsieur du Bousquier, my honor doesn’t need gendarmes to drag you to the mayor’s office. I sha’n’t lack for husbands, thank goodness! and I don’t want a man who can’t appreciate what I’m worth. But some day you’ll repent of the way you are behaving; for I tell you now that nothing on earth, neither gold nor silver, will induce me to return the good thing that belongs to you, if you refuse to accept it to-day.” “But, Suzanne, are you sure?” “Oh, monsieur!” cried the grisette, wrapping her virtue round her, “what do you take me for? I don’t remind you of the promises you made me, which have ruined a poor young girl whose only blame was to have as much ambition as love.” Du Bousquier was torn with conflicting sentiments, joy, distrust, calculation. He had long determined to marry Mademoiselle Cormon; for the Charter, on which he had just been ruminating, offered to his ambition, through the half of her property, the political career of a deputy. Besides, his marriage with the old maid would put him socially so high in the town that he would have great influence. Consequently, the storm upraised by that malicious Suzanne drove him into the wildest embarrassment. Without this secret scheme, he would have married Suzanne without hesitation. In which case, he could openly assume the leadership of the liberal party in Alencon. After such a marriage he would, of course, renounce the best society and take up with the bourgeois class of tradesmen, rich manufacturers and graziers, who would certainly carry him in triumph as their candidate. Du Bousquier already foresaw the Left side. This solemn deliberation he did not conceal; he rubbed his hands over his head, displacing the cap which covered its disastrous baldness. Suzanne, meantime, like all those persons who succeed beyond their hopes, was silent and amazed. To hide her astonishment, she assumed the melancholy pose of an injured girl at the mercy of her seducer; inwardly she was laughing like a grisette at her clever trick. “My dear child,” said du Bousquier at length, “I’m not to be taken in with such _bosh_, not I!”