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"I cannot be angry with you, Madame Rapally, I know your offer was made out of the kindness of your heart, but I must repeat that it is impossible for me to accept it." "There you go again! I don't understand you at all! Why can't you accept? What harm would it do?" "If there were no other reason, because people might suspect that I confided my difficulties to you in the hope of help."
Maitre Quennebert would therefore have felt no anxiety as to the effect of his dilatoriness on the widow, were it not for the existence of a distant cousin of the late Monsieur Rapally, who was also paying court to her, and that with a warmth much greater than had hitherto been displayed by himself.
Encouraged by the suspension of hostilities, Madame Rapally with sudden boldness approached him, and, pressing one of his hands in both her own, whispered "It is I who am going to lend you the money." He repulsed her gently, but with an air of great dignity, and said "Madame, I thank you, but I cannot accept." "Why can't you?"
And the widow gave a saucy laugh and shook her finger at him. "Madame Rapally," said the notary, who was most anxious to bring this conversation to an end, dreading every moment that it would take a languishing tone,"Madame Rapally, will you add to your goodness by granting me one more favour?" "What is it?"
The two ceremonies took place simultaneously in two adjoining chapels; the funeral dirges which fell on the widow's ear full of sinister prediction seemed to have quite another meaning for Quennebert, for his features lost their look of care, his wrinkles smoothed themselves out, till the guests, among whom was Trumeau, who did not suspect the secret of his relief from suspense, began to believe, despite their surprise, that he was really rejoiced at obtaining legal possession of the charming Madame Rapally.
With the reader's permission, we must now jump over an interval of rather more than a year, and bring upon the stage a person who, though only of secondary importance, can no longer be left behind the scenes. We have already said that the loves of Quennebert and Madame Rapally were regarded with a jealous eye by a distant cousin of the lady's late husband.
But his business had thereby suffered, and once having made the acquaintance of Madame Rapally, he cultivated it assiduously, knowing her fortune would be sufficient to set him straight again with the world, though he was obliged to exercise the utmost caution and reserve in has intercourse with her, as she on her side displayed none of these qualities.
Receiving no answer, Madame Rapally groped her way into the next room, and finding that empty, buried herself beneath the bedclothes, and passed the rest of the night dreaming of drawn swords, duels, and murders.
But he did not need it to replace a sum of which a faithless friend had robbed him, but to satisfy his own creditors, who, out of all patience with him, were threatening to sue him, and his only reason for seeking out Madame de Rapally was to take advantage of her generous disposition towards himself.
The solitary mourner glanced by chance at Quennebert, and started as if the sight of him was painful. "What an unlucky meeting!" murmured Madame Rapally; "it is sure to be a bad omen." "It's sure to be the exact opposite," said Quennebert smiling.
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