Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/300

 Goupil, casting him a look full of malice, hatred and defiance.

“Would you like to be the wife of a notary who will bring you a dowry of one hundred thousand francs?” cried Bongrand, entering the little parlor and addressing Ursule, who was sitting beside Madame de Portenduère.

Moved by the same impulse, Ursule and Savinien started and looked at each other: she smiling, he not daring to show his anxiety.

“I am not mistress of my actions,” replied Ursule, holding out her hand to Savinien without the old mother seeing this gesture.

“Therefore I refused without even consulting you.”

“And why?” said Madame de Portenduère. “It seems to me, my child, that a notary’s is a fine position?”

“I prefer my peaceful poverty,” she replied, “for, compared to what I might have expected from life, it is wealth to me. Besides, my old nurse saves me many worries, and I am not going to exchange the present, which satisfies me, for an unknown future.”