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"And what may be the meaning of this?" demanded M. Binet, bewildered and profoundly shocked. "Does it require explaining?" asked Scaramouche. "Doesn't it speak for itself eloquently? It means that Climene and I have taken it into our heads to be married." "And doesn't it matter what I may take into my head?" "Of course.
"If you were as good an actor on the stage as you are in private," said Scaramouche, "you would yourself have won to the Comedie Francaise long since. But I bear no rancour, M. Binet." He laughed, and put out his hand. Binet fell upon it and wrung it heartily. "That, at least, is something," he declared. "My boy, I have great plans for you for us.
"Well declared, my lad. You'll never regret it. If I know anything of the theatre, I know that you have made the great decision of your life. To-morrow night you'll thank me." Andre-Louis shrugged, and stepped out ahead towards the inn. But M. Binet called him back. "M. Parvissimus!" He turned.
His eyes sought M. Binet's. M. Binet's eyes eluded his glance. Again it was Leandre who answered him. "Not yet." "Ah!" Andre-Louis sat down, and poured himself wine. There was an oppressive silence in the room. Leandre watched him expectantly, Columbine commiseratingly. Even M. Binet appeared to be waiting for a cue from Scaramouche. But Scaramouche disappointed him.
Still was he not concerned. He perceived the source of her ill-humour; understood, whilst deploring it; and, because he understood, forgave. He perceived also that her ill-humour was shared by her father, and by this he was frankly amused. Towards M. Binet a tolerant contempt was the only feeling that complete acquaintance could beget.
She suspected him of an unpardonable mockery. "You go very fast, don't you?" she asked him, with heat. "I do. Haven't you observed it? I am a man of sudden impulses. See what I have made of the Binet troupe in less than a couple of months. Another might have laboured for a year and not achieved the half of it. Shall I be slower in love than in work? Would it be reasonable to expect it?
There is subtlety in pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mlle. Climene a queen." Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery. "You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all unconscious." The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt what yet there was to learn of this strolling band.
Binet, who never interfered with other people's business, Madame Lefrançois, Artémise, the neighbors, even the mayor, Monsieur Tuvache every one persuaded him, lectured him, shamed him; but what finally decided him was that it would cost him nothing. Bovary even undertook to provide the machine for the operation.
"That is much what I was told," she said. "But it was added that M. de La Tour d'Azyr had gone to the theatre expressly for the purpose of breaking finally with La Binet. Do you know if that was so?" "I don't; nor of any reason why it should be so. La Binet provided him the sort of amusement that he and his kind are forever craving..." "Oh, there was a reason," she interrupted him.
"Until you find it more profitable to sell me." "You have it in your power to make it more profitable always for me to keep faith with you. It is due to you that we have done so well in Guichen. Oh, I admit it frankly." "In private," said Andre-Louis. M. Binet left the sarcasm unheeded. "What you have done for us here with 'Figaro-Scaramouche, you can do elsewhere with other things.
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