Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/347

 country of Madame de Portenduère, who would then consent to your marriage with her son—?”

“Monsieur Minoret,” said Ursule, “I have no right at all to so large a sum and I could not accept it from you. We are very slightly related and still less friends. I have already suffered too much from the miseries of calumny to wish to give rise to scandal. What have I done to deserve this money? Upon what grounds do you make me such a present? These questions, which I have the right to ask you, will be answered by everyone according to his own interpretation, it would be considered as reparation for some injury, and I would not accept any. Your uncle did not bring me up with ignoble feelings. One should not accept anything but from one’s friends: I could not feel affection for you, and I should necessarily be ungrateful. I do not wish to run the risk of wanting in gratitude.”

“You refuse?” cried the giant, who could not conceive the idea of anyone being able to refuse a fortune.

“I refuse,” repeated Ursule.

“But what is your reason for offering mademoiselle such a fortune?” asked the old lawyer, looking fixedly at Minoret, “you have an idea; have you an idea?”

“Well, the idea of sending her away from Nemours so that my son should leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her.”

“Well then, we will see,” replied the justice of