Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/350

 trousers-pocket to tap Minoret on the shoulder, making him start. “Do not take a false oath so lightly.”

“A false oath?”

“It is either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, at the sub-prefect’s, before four persons and the public prosecutor, that he has never thought of his cousin Ursule Mirouët. Then you have other reasons for offering her such an enormous capital? I saw that you were making rash assertions, and went myself to Fontainebleau.”

Minoret stood dumfounded at his own stupidity.

“But there is no harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in offering to help a relation in a marriage which seems likely to make her happy, and in finding pretexts for overcoming her modesty.”

Minoret, to whom danger had suggested an almost plausible excuse, wiped his forehead, which was covered with big beads of perspiration.

“You know my motives for refusing,” answered Ursule, “and I beg you not to come here again. Monsieur de Portenduère, without confiding his reasons to me, entertains feelings of scorn and even hatred towards you, which forbid me to receive you. My happiness is my entire fortune, I do not blush to confess it; and so I will not endanger it, as Monsieur de Portenduère is only waiting until I come of age, to marry me.”

“The proverb, ‘Money does everything’ is indeed untrue,” said great fat Minoret, looking at the justice of the peace, whose observing eyes made him very uncomfortable.