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Césarine answered, like a shot, "The Erzherzog Johann, of course, at Meran, for the autumn, madame." "Is he ... an archduke?" Amelia asked, a little staggered at such apparent familiarity with Imperial personages. "Ma foi! no, madame.
"Mamma," said Cesarine, sitting on her mother's knee, and caressing her with the pretty kittenish grace which women only display to perfection amongst themselves, "you said that if I took up my life bravely, you would have strength to bear adversity. Don't cry, dear mother; I am ready and willing to go into some shop, and I shall never think again of what we once were.
Go to Paris, my dear; go at the cost of an old celibate, I won't prevent it; in fact, I'll help you, for an old bachelor, Suzanne, is the natural money-box of a young girl. But don't drag me into the matter. I'm as poor as a church mouse; you know that, my dear. Ah! if I marry Mademoiselle Cormon, if I am once more rich, of course I would prefer you to Cesarine.
"Believe me, madame," replied M. de Tregars, "I have perfectly understood how much naive boasting there was in all that Mlle. Cesarine told me." "Then, really, you do not judge her too severely?" "Your heart has not more indulgence for her than my own." "And yet it is from you that her first real sorrow comes." "From me?"
"It is very sweet to be so loved," he said, getting into the coach in presence of the assembled clerks, and Cesarine, and Constance. They, one and all, gazed at Cesar, attired in black silk knee-breeches, silk stockings, and the new bottle-blue coat, on which was about to gleam the ribbon that, according to Molineux, was dyed in blood.
Césarine returned with a full, true, and particular list, adorned with flowers of rhetoric which would have delighted the soul of good old John Robins. They were all picturesque, all Romanesque, all richly ivy-clad, all commodious, all historical, and all the property of high well-born Grafs and very honourable Freiherrs.
Luncheon was served and M. Cantagnac, seated comfortably, was trying the delicacies with rare conscientiousness about any escaping his harpoon-like fork. Césarine did not give him a second look and neither he nor Clemenceau, with whom he was chatting on politics, more than glanced up at her.
Thus thought Cesarine, involuntarily perhaps, yet not altogether crudely; she gave a bird's-eye glance at the harvest of love in her own home, and reasoned by induction; the happiness of her mother was before her eyes, she wished for no better fate; her instinct told her that Anselme was another Cesar, improved by his education, as she had been improved by hers.
"What an enchanting scene! What a fine orchestra! Will you often give us a ball?" said Madame Lebas. "What a charming appartement! Is this your own taste?" said Madame Desmarets. Birotteau ventured on a fib, and allowed her to suppose that he had designed it. Cesarine, who was asked, of course, for all the dances, understood very well Anselme's delicacy in that matter.
"I have no use for it," she said hastily, "on the contrary, I wish the money to be where I cannot touch it." "Nobody will touch it there," returned the young man gravely. "Stop! how will you get it if anything happens to me if I should die?" "A young man like you die in a couple of days!" laughed Césarine. "It may occur," he replied gloomily.
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