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And then Madame Bauche asked her final question: "You do not think, do you, that you can ever marry Adolphe?" And as she asked it the accustomed terror of her green spectacles magnified itself tenfold. Marie could only answer by another burst of tears. The affair was at last settled among them.
Money and pleasure, and some little position in the world, would soon wean him from his love; and then Marie would accept her destiny as other girls in the same position had done since the French world began. And now it was the evening before Adolphe's expected arrival. La Mere Bauche was discussing the matter with the capitaine over the usual cup of coffee.
That there had once been a Pere Bauche was known to the world, for there was a Fils Bauche who lived with his mother; but no one seemed to remember more of him than that he had once existed. At Vernet he had never been known.
"I should not care that," and she made a motion with her hand to show how indifferent she would be to such treatment as regarded herself. "Not that ; if I still had the promise of your love." "But what would you do?" "I would work. There are other houses beside that one," and she pointed to the slate roof of the Bauche establishment.
And in this respect, as indeed in all others, Madame Bauche had the reputation of being an honest woman. She had a certain price, from which no earthly consideration would induce her to depart; and there were certain returns for this price in the shape of dejeuners and dinners, baths and beds, which she never failed to give in accordance with the dictates of a strict conscience.
See looked suppliantly towards her lover, as though beseeching him to carry on the fight for her. But if she could not do battle for herself, certainly he could not do it for her. What little amount of fighting he had had in him, had been thoroughly vanquished before her arrival. "I will have an answer, and that immediately," said Madame Bauche.
Believe me, Mere Bauche, things will be right enough." "And then we shall have Marie sick and ill and half dying on our hands," said Madame Bauche. This was not flattering to the capitaine, and so he felt it. "Perhaps so, perhaps not," he said. "But at any rate she will get over it. It is a malady which rarely kills young women especially when another alliance awaits them."
La Mere Bauche pished and pshawed, as though she were not minded to pay any attention to recommendations on such subjects from the capitaine. But nevertheless when Marie was seen slowly to creep across the little bridge about fifteen minutes after this time, she had a handkerchief on her head, and was closely wrapped in a dark brown cloak.
"At any rate it is too late now. Marie had better come down among us and show herself satisfied with her husband." But Madame Bauche took Marie's part. "You must not be too hard on Marie," she said. "She has gone through a good deal this week past, and is very young; whereas, capitaine, you are not very young." The capitaine merely shrugged his shoulders.
This was done with some little ceremony, in the presence of all the guests who were staying at the establishment, and with all manner of gracious acknowledgments of Marie's virtues. It seemed as though La Mere Bauche could not be courteous enough to her. There was no more talk of her being a child of charity; no more allusion now to the gutter.
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