honor you intended me; and it is with sincere regret that I relinquish the hand of your daughter."
Madame d'Arfeuille could not believe her ears; for one moment she had a mind to faint again, but the icy deportment of the banker deterred her from that bit of acting. She displayed great cleverness in trying to alter M. Vincent's resolve; she even stooped to entreaty. But it was of no avail; M. Vincent remained unmoved, and looked more gloomy than ever. Then Madame d'Arfeuille flew simply and frankly into a rage; she accused the banker of having caused the misery of a poor innocent girl, and of striving to bring shame on her mother. Vincent remained as insensible to her fury as he had been to her prayers; till at last, at the end of half an hour, thoroughly worn out and defeated, she retreated from the field where she had thought herself sure to achieve victory.
A few months later, pretty Jeanne d' Arfeuille married a young country gentleman of a neighboring department, who was both well-born and wealthy. Her mother was delighted at a marriage which realized all her fondest wishes; but she retained a bitter resentment against the banker who had offended her, and never forgave him. Her southern imagination enabled her to fabricate, in respect of this affair, a whole story, which she repeated so often to her friends that she ended by believing it herself. According to this version, M. Vincent, whom she styled "a vulgar, forward parvenu and money-lender," had had the "audacity" to aspire to the hand of an Arfeuille. "Fortunately," she would add with magnificent dignity, "my daughter had been too well brought up not to know how to teach a fellow like that his proper place. Then he came to supplicate me to intercede with Jeanne on his behalf, and I really thought I would never be able to shake him off."
This strange story was repeated on all sides by Madame d'Arfeuille's family and friends, and came at last to M. Vincent's ears. He took no trouble to contradict it, and merely shrugged his shoulders. Some one, more curious than the rest, ventured to ask him point-blank whether there was any truth in it. He answered quietly, "You are at liberty to believe this story, if you like; as for me, I have something better to do than to trouble myself about gossip."
After Mlle. d'Arfeuille's marriage, Vincent appeared to have given up all thoughts of seeking a wife. Some proposals were made to him, for there was no lack in Lunel of good and prudent mothers who would willingly have given their daughters to the rich banker. But he avoided rather than sought opportunities of associating with unmarried women. When his friends expressed their regret, he would say, "I am no longer young; I have nothing to offer to a young woman but my fortune, and I would not care for a wife who took me for that. If ever I become foolish enough to imagine that I may be loved for my own sake, you may perhaps see me come forward in the character of a suitor. In the mean time, I hold myself satisfied with the two failures I have experienced, and I mean to try and get accustomed to the life of an old bachelor."
Many years went by; Vincent became an old man, and it entered nobody's head to think of him as a marriageable man. M. Vincent's mode of life was simple and unvaried. He rose very early, shaved and dressed at once, and started in his cabriolet for a small estate in the neighborhood of the town, which he had inherited from his father. He was no agriculturist, and did not affect to be one: his visits to the Mas de Vincent — so his property was called — had no practical object; but he had taken so thoroughly the habit of this daily excursion, that, summer or winter, in rain or in sunshine, he never failed to make it. His coachman, old Guerre, who sat beside him in the cabriolet, was a morose man, who never opened his lips except to answer laconically his master's questions. Such a companion was no restraint on the banker, who could indulge in his own thoughts during the whole journey. These must have been of a serious kind, for the countenance of the old bachelor always preserved the same cold expression of reserve.
On arriving at the mas, he would unbend a little. The manager of the estate came out to meet him, asked news of his health in a few words — always the same, — and then conducted him to the place where the work was going on. Paire Dufour[1] was a clever fellow, who knew how to interest his master by telling him something new every day. On this hillside, the vines were prospering; on that other, they were attacked by disease. The silkworms were thriving, while those of the
- ↑ In the south of France, paire is the name given to the foremost workman on a farm, and often to the manager himself.
