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132 Des Boys had an income of sixty thousand francs of which, she imagined, he hardly spent half. There was no doubt that he would willingly give the greater part of the other half to his only daughter. As she had also calculated, though with less certainty, the value of M. Hervart's fortune, she concluded decisively:

"We shall have from thirty to forty thousand francs a year."

M. Hervart calculated the ﬁgures again with the details that were known to him personally and found the estimate correct. His admiration for Rose was increased.

"She has all the virtues: an aptitude for love and the sense of domestic economy: intelligence and very little education: health without a striking beauty. Finally, she adores me and I love her."

At the ﬁrst insinuations of his friend M. Des Boys smiled and said:

"I thought as much. My daughter has received but the vaguest education. Her mother is incapable. As for me, I am interested only in art. She needs a serious husband, a husband, that is to say, who is not in his ﬁrst