"It's old Antoine's business to look out for his daughter," he thought. "If the old sot sleeps on his own perils, he has at all events a servant-mistress who has nothing better to do than put the key of the famous pavilion in her pocket at night. I can open the duenna's eyes when the time comes." With this persuasion he left Emile almost free, both as to his time and his acts. He confined himself to ridiculing and bitterly decrying the family of Châteaubrun when opportunity offered, in order to protect himself from the reproach of having openly encouraged his son's suit. In his opinion, Antoine de Châteaubrun was really a poor creature, a man of no consideration, whom poverty had degraded and idleness brutalized. He saw with vainglorious pleasure the former lords of the soil, thus fallen from their high estate, take refuge in the arms of the people, not daring to have recourse to the protection and companionship of the newly rich. Monsieur de Boisguilbault found no favor in his eyes, although it was difficult to reproach him with dissipation and impropriety of conduct. The wealth which he had succeeded in retaining gave much more umbrage to Cardonnet than the name of Châteaubrun, and while he despised the count, he had a sort of hatred for the marquis. He declared that he was a fit subject for the lunatic hospital, and he blushed for him, he said, because of the idiotic use he had made of so long a life and so vast a fortune. Emile took pains to defend Monsieur de Boisguilbault, but without avowing that he saw him two or three times a week. He was afraid that his father, by suggesting to him that he must make his visits more infrequent, would deprive him of the excuse he had for making a short call on the family at Châteaubrun as he rode by. He needed that excuse particularly on Gilberte's account, for he was confident that Monsieur Antoine would make no comment; but he was afraid that Janille might convince Mademoiselle that her dignity demanded that she should keep at a respectful distance a young man who was too wealthy to marry her, according to worldly ideas. He foresaw clearly enough that the day would come when his assiduity would be observed. "But by that time," he said to himself, "perhaps she will love me, and I can explain the seriousness of my attentions." This thought naturally led him to anticipate a long and vehement opposition on Monsieur Cardonnet's part; but thereupon there rose in him a sort of well-spring of courage and determination; his heart beat like that of a soldier rushing forward to the assault, burning to plant his flag on the breach with his own hand; he felt that he quivered like the war-horse intoxicated by the smell of powder. Sometimes, when his father overwhelmed one of his workmen with his cold, concentrated wrath, he would fold his arms and involuntarily measure him with his eye.