Chapter XIII

"COME, come, François, we do not understand each other," returned Master Jean Vertaud; "and I do not know how to take you. You are no fool, and I think my hints have been broad enough; but you are so shy that I will help you out still further. Are not you in love with some girl about here?"

"No, master," was the waif's honest answer.

"Truly?"

"I give you my word."

"Don't you know one who might please you, if you were able to pay your court to her?"

"I have no desire to marry."

"What an idea! You are too young to answer for that. What's your reason?"

"My reason? Do you really care to know, master?"

"Yes, because I feel an interest in you."

"Then I will tell you; there is no occasion for me to hide it: I have never known father or mother. And there is something I have never told you; I was not obliged to do so; but if you had asked me, I should have told you the truth: I am a waif; I come from the foundling asylum."

"Is it possible?" exclaimed Jean Vertaud, somewhat taken aback by this confession. "I should never have thought it."

"Why should you never have thought it? You do not answer, Master Vertaud. Very well, I shall answer for you. You saw that I was a good fellow, and you could not believe that a waif could be like that. It is true, then, that nobody has confidence in waifs, and that there is a prejudice against them. It is not just or humane; but since such a prejudice exists, everybody must conform to it, and the best people are not exempt, since you yourself--"

"No, no," said Master Vertaud, with a revulsion of feeling, for he was a just man, and always ready to abjure a false notion; "I do not wish to fail in justice, and if I forgot myself for a moment, you must forgive me, for that is all past now. So, you think you cannot marry, because you were born a waif?"

"Not at all, master; I do not consider that an obstacle. There are all sorts of women, and some of them are so kind-hearted that my misfortune might prove an inducement."

"That is true," cried Jean Vertaud. "Women are better than we are. Yet," he continued, with a laugh, "a fine handsome fellow like you, in the flower of youth, and without any defect of body or mind, might very well add a zest to the pleasure of being charitable. But come, give me your reason."

"Listen," said François. "I was taken from the asylum and nursed by a woman whom I never knew. At her death I was intrusted to another woman, who received me for the sake of the slender pittance granted by the government to those of my kind; but she was good to me, and when I was so unfortunate as to lose her, I should never have been comforted but for the help of another woman, who was the best of the three, and whom I still love so much, that I am unwilling to live for any other woman but her. I have left her, and perhaps I may never see her again, for she is well off, and may never have need of me. Still, her husband has had many secret expenses, and I have heard that he has been ill since autumn, so it may be that he will die before long, and leave her with more debts than property. If this happened, master, I do not deny that I should return to the place she lives in, and that my only care and desire would be to assist her and her son, and keep them from poverty by my toil. That is my reason for not undertaking any engagement which would bind me elsewhere. You employ me by the year, but if I married, I should be tied for life. I should be assuming too many duties at once. If I had a wife and children, it is not to be supposed that I could earn enough bread for two families; neither is it to be supposed, if, by extraordinary luck, I found a wife with some money of her own, that I should have the right to deprive my house of its comforts, to bestow them upon another's. Thus I expect to remain a bachelor. I am young, and have time enough before me; but if some fancy for a girl should enter my head, I should try to get rid of it; because, do you see, there is but one woman in the world for me, and that is my mother Madeleine, who never despised me for being a waif, but brought me up as her own child."

"Is that it?" answered Jean Vertaud. "My dear fellow, what you tell me only increases my esteem for you. Nothing is so ugly as ingratitude, and nothing so beautiful as the memory of benefits received. I may have some good reasons for showing you that you could many a young woman of the same mind as yourself, who would join you in aiding your old friend, but they are reasons which I must think over, and I must ask somebody else's opinion."

No great cleverness was necessary to guess that Jean Vertaud, with his honest heart and sound judgment, had conceived of a marriage between his daughter and François. His daughter was comely, and though she was somewhat older than François, she had money enough to make up the difference. She was an only child, and a fine match, but up to this time, to her father's great vexation, she had refused to marry. He had observed lately that she thought a great deal of François, and had questioned her about him, but as she was a very reserved person, he had some difficulty in extorting any confession from her. Finally, without giving a positive answer, she consented to allow her father to sound François on the subject of marriage, and awaited the result with more uneasiness than she cared to show.

Jean Vertaud was disappointed that he had not a more satisfactory answer to carry to her; first, because he was so anxious to have her married, and next, because he could not wish for a better son-in-law than François. Besides the affection he felt for him, he saw clearly that the poor boy who had come to him was worth his weight in gold, on account of his intelligence, his quickness at his work, and his good conduct.

The young woman was a little pained to hear that François was a foundling. She was a trifle proud, but she made up her mind quickly, and her liking became more pronounced when she learned that François was backward in love. Women go by contraries, and if François had schemed to obtain indulgence for the irregularity of his birth, he could have contrived no more artful device that that of showing a distaste toward marriage.

So it happened that Jean Vertaud's daughter decided in François's favor, that day, for the first time.

"Is that all?" said she to her father. "Doesn't he think that we should have both the desire and the means to aid an old woman and find a situation for her son? He cannot have understood your hints, father, for if he knew it was a question of entering our family, he would have felt no such anxiety."

That evening, when they were at work, Jeannette Vertaud said to François:

"I have always had a high opinion of you, François; but it is still higher now that my father has told me of your affection for the woman who brought you up, and for whom you wish to work all your life. It is right for you to feel so. I should like to know the woman, so that I might serve her in case of need, because you have always been so fond of her. She must be a fine woman."

"Oh! yes," said François, who was pleased to talk of Madeleine, "she is a woman with a good heart, a woman with a heart like yours."

Jeannette Vertaud was delighted at this, and, thinking herself sure of what she wanted, went on:

"If she should turn out as unfortunate as you fear, I wish she could come and live with us. I should help you take care of her, for I suppose that she is no longer young. Is not she infirm?"

"Infirm? No," said François; "she is not old enough to be infirm."

"Then is she still young?" asked Jeannette Vertaud, beginning to prick up her ears.

"Oh! no, she is not young," answered François, simply. "I do not remember how old she is now. She was a mother to me, and I never thought of her age."

"Was she attractive?" asked Jeannette, after hesitating a moment before putting the question.

"Attractive?" said François, with some surprise; "do you mean to ask if she is a pretty woman? She is pretty enough for me just as she is; but to tell the truth, I never thought of that. What difference can it make in my affection for her? She might be as ugly as the devil, without my finding it out."

"But cannot you tell me about how old she is?"

"Wait a minute. Her son was five years younger than I. Well! She is not old, but she is not very young; she is about like--"

"Like me?" said Jeannette, making a slight effort to laugh. "In that case, if she becomes a widow, it will be too late for her to marry again, will it not?"

"That depends on circumstances," replied François. "If her husband has not wasted all the property, she would have plenty of suitors. There are fellows, who would marry their great-aunts as wittingly as their great-nieces, for money."

"Then you have no esteem for those who marry for money?"

"I could not do it," answered François.

Simple-hearted as the waif was, he was no such simpleton as not to understand the insinuations which had been made him, and he did not speak without meaning. But Jeannette would not take the hint, and fell still deeper in love with him. She had had many admirers, without paying attention to any of them, and now the only one who pleased her, turned his back on her. Such is the logical temper of a woman's mind.

François observed during the following days that she had something on her mind, for she ate scarcely anything, and her eyes were always fixed on him, whenever she thought he was not looking. Her attachment pained him. He respected this good woman, and saw that the more indifferent he appeared, the more she cared about him; but he had no fancy for her, and if he had tried to cultivate such a feeling, it would have been the result of duty and principle rather than of spontaneous affection.

He reflected that he could not stay much longer with Jean Vertaud, because he knew that, sooner or later, such a condition of affairs must necessarily give rise to some unfortunate difference.

Just at this time, however, an incident befell which changed the current of his thoughts.