Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/88

 “I shall take the oath at the re-opening,” he said, answering the friendly greetings from the crowd.

“Then we shall have some fun?” said Goupil shaking his hand.

“Ah! there you are, old monkey,” replied Désiré.

“You still take out a license for argument after your argument for a license,” retorted the clerk, mortified at being treated so familiarly before so many people.

“What! he tells him to hold his tongue?” Madame Crémière asked her husband.

“You know what I brought, Cabirolle!” cried Désiré to the old violet-hued, pimple-faced guard, “have it all taken to the house.”

“The perspiration is streaming off your horses,” said the harsh Zélie to Cabirolle; “have you no better sense than to drive them like that? You are more stupid than they are!”

“But Monsieur Désiré wanted to arrive as quickly as possible, in order to relieve your anxiety—”

“But, as there was no accident, why risk losing your horses?” she rejoined.

The recognition of friends, the good-mornings, the outbursts of the young people around Désiré, all the incidents of the arrival and the account of the accident which had caused the delay, took so much time that the band of heirs, with the addition of their friends, arrived in the market-place just as mass was ended. By chance, which indulges in everything, Désiré saw Ursule under the church porch as he was passing, and he stopped, stupefied by her