Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/187

 cap, about sixty years old, entered briskly and took the curé’s coffee to heat it.

“Stay quiet, Monsieur le Recteur,” she said, seeing that the curé wanted to drink it, “I will put it into hot water, it will not get nasty.”

“Well,” resumed the curé with his insinuating voice, “I will go and warn Monsieur le Docteur of your visit, and you will come.”

The old mother only yielded after an hour’s discussion, in which the curé was obliged to repeat his arguments ten times over. And even then the haughty Kergarouët was only conquered by these parting words:

“Savinien would go!”

“Then it is better that I go,” she said.