Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/307

 the curé as far as the threshold of the entrance, stretching her neck like a bird looking out of its nest, still hoping to see Savinien.

Just then, Minoret and Goupil, returning from some walk in the fields, stopped in passing, and the doctor’s heir said to Ursule:

“What is the matter with you, cousin? for we are always cousins, are we not? You seem altered.”

Goupil was casting such ardent looks at Ursule that she was frightened; she went in without replying.

“She is shy,” said Minoret to the curé.

“Mademoiselle Mirouët is quite right not to talk to men on her doorstep; she is too young—”

“Oh!” said Goupil, “you must know that she does not lack lovers.”

The curé had hastened to bow and was hurriedly walking toward the Rue des Bourgeois.

“Well!” said the head clerk to Minoret, “it is brewing! She is already as white as death; but, in a fortnight, she will have left the town. You will see.”

“It’s better to have you for a friend than an enemy,” cried Minoret, startled by the cruel smile which gave Goupil’s face the diabolical expression ascribed by Joseph Bridau to Goethe’s Mephistopheles.

“I should think so,” replied Goupil. “If she does not marry me I will kill her with sorrow.”

“Do this, young man, and I give you the funds to become a notary in Paris. You will then be able to marry a rich woman—”