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Cardot has married his second daughter, Mariane, to Monsieur Protez, of the firm of Protez and Chiffreville. The practice of his eldest son, the notary, cost him four hundred thousand francs; and he has just put his second son, Joseph, into the drug business of Matifat. So you see, your uncle Cardot has many reasons not to take an interest in you, whom he sees only four times a year.
"Yes," said Lousteau, "old Camusot married little Daddy Cardot's eldest daughter, and they had high times together!" "Well!" Madame Schontz went on, "and Madame Cardot, the notary's wife, was a Chiffreville manufacturers of chemical products, the aristocracy of these days! Potash, I tell you! Still, this is the unpleasant side of the matter.
She had never annoyed old Cardot by her visits, or her importunities, but she held to him as to a hope, and always went to see him once every three months and talked to him of Oscar, the nephew of the late respectable Madame Cardot; and she took the boy to call upon him three times during each vacation.
Like father, like son. A very good fellow and a philosopher, was little Daddy Cardot excuse me, we always called him so. At that time, Florine, Florentine, Tullia, Coralie, and Mariette were the five fingers of your hand, so to speak it is fifteen years ago. My follies, as you may suppose, are a thing of the past.
"We'll leave the remaining fifteen hundred between you," whispered la Peyrade to Desroches and Godeschal, "on condition that you give me the relinquishment, which I will have Thuillier accept and sign before his notary, Cardot. Poor man! he never closed his eyes all night!" "Very well," replied Desroches.
"You are quite at liberty to remain his friend, sir, if you are minded that way," returned Cardot, "but you need go no further; for I must give you warning that in my opinion those who try to excuse or defend his conduct are just as much to blame." "To chustify it?" "Yes, for his conduct can neither be justified nor qualified."
"One moment," cried Cardot, fairly deafened by a chorus of wretched jokes. "I came here on serious business. I am bringing six millions for one of you." O'Flaharty?" "Yes," said Raphael mechanically enough; "Barbara Marie." "Have you your certificate of birth about you," Cardot went on, "and Mme. de Valentin's as well?" "I believe so."
"It is a fine thing to be your heir!" remarked old Cardot, looking at Pons. "My heir is my Cousin Cecile here," answered Pons, insisting on the relationship. There was a flutter of admiration at this. "She will be a very rich heiress," laughed old Cardot, as he took his departure.
Camusot considered that Pere Cardot gave expression to a high sense of family duty in these words; he regarded him as an admirable father-in-law. "He knows," thought he, "how to unite the interests of his children with the pleasures which old age naturally desires after the worries of business life."
Certain, through a long lease, of ending his days there, he lived rather plainly, served by an old cook and the former maid of the late Madame Cardot, both of whom expected to reap an annuity of some six hundred francs apiece on the old man's death.
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