l, so that I may have the
pleasure of seeing you again."

"How clever she is, that 'little girl' of mine!" thought the Presidente,
following closely upon her daughter's heels. Aloud she said, "With the
greatest pleasure, monsieur. I hope that you will come at dinner-time
with our Cousin Pons. The President will be delighted to make your
acquaintance.--Thank you, cousin."

The lady squeezed Pons' arm with deep meaning; she could not have said
more if she had used the consecrated formula, "Let us swear an eternal
friendship." The glance which accompanied that "Thank you, cousin," was
a caress.

When the young lady had been put into the carriage, and the jobbed
brougham had disappeared down the Rue Charlot, Brunner talked
bric-a-brac to Pons, and Pons talked marriage.

"Then you see no obstacle?" said Pons.

"Oh!" said Brunner, "she is an insignificant little thing, and the
mother is a trifle prim.--We shall see."

"A handsome fortune one of these days.... More than a million--"

"Good-bye till Monday!" interrupted the millionaire. "If you should
care to sell your collection of pictures, I would give you five or six
hundred thousand francs--"

"Ah!" said Pons; he had no idea that he was so rich. "But they are my
great pleasure in life, and I could not bring myself to part with them.
I could only sell my collection to be delivered after my death."

"Very well. We shall see."

"Here we have two affairs afoot!" said Pons; he was thinking only of the
marriage.

Brunner shook hands and drove away in his splendid carriage. Pons
watched it out of sight. He did not notice that Remonencq was smoking
his pipe in the doorway.

That evening Mme. de Marville went to ask advice of her father-in-law,
and found the whole Popinot family at the Camusots' house. It was only
natural that a mother who had failed to capture an eldest son should be
tempted to take her little revenge; so Mme. de Marville threw out hints
of the splendid marriage that her Cecile was about to make.--"Whom can
Cecile be going to marry?" was the question upon all lips. And Cecile's
mother, without suspecting that she was betraying her secret, let
fall words and whispered confidences, afterwards supplemented by Mme.
Berthier, till gossip circulating in the bourgeois empyrean where
Pons accomplished his gastronomical evolutions took something like the
following form:

"Cecile de Marville is engaged to be married to a young German, a banker
from philant