“Think of his giving five hundred thousand francs to his companion in misfortune!  Oh! mamma, I shall have a carriage and a box at the Italiens——­” Cecile grew almost pretty as she thought that all her mother’s ambitions for her were about to be realized, that the hopes which had almost left her were to come to something after all.

As for the Presidente, all that she said was, “My dear little girl, you may perhaps be married within the fortnight.”

All mothers with daughters of three-and-twenty address them as “little girl.”

“Still,” added the President, “in any case, we must have time to make inquiries; never will I give my daughter to just anybody—­”

“As to inquiries,” said Pons, “Berthier is drawing up the deeds.  As to the young man himself, my dear cousin, you remember what you told me?  Well, he is quite forty years old; he is bald.  He wishes to find in family life a haven after a storm; I did not dissuade him; every man has his tastes—­”

“One reason the more for a personal interview,” returned the President.  “I am not going to give my daughter to a valetudinarian.”

“Very good, cousin, you shall see my suitor in five days if you like; for, with your views, a single interview would be enough”—­(Cecile and her mother signified their rapture)—­“Frederic is decidedly a distinguished amateur; he begged me to allow him to see my little collection at his leisure.  You have never seen my pictures and curiosities; come and see them,” he continued, looking at his relatives.  “You can come simply as two ladies, brought by my friend Schmucke, and make M. Brunner’s acquaintance without betraying yourselves.  Frederic need not in the least know who you are.”

“Admirable!” cried the President.

The attention they paid to the once scorned parasite may be left to the imagination!  Poor Pons that day became the Presidente’s cousin.  The happy mother drowned her dislike in floods of joy; her looks, her smiles, her words sent the old man into ecstasies over the good that he had done, over the future that he saw by glimpses.  Was he not sure to find dinners such as yesterday’s banquet over the signing of the contract, multiplied indefinitely by three, in the houses of Brunner, Schwab, and Graff?  He saw before him a land of plenty—­a vie de cocagne, a miraculous succession of plats couverts, of delicate surprise dishes, of exquisite wines.

“If Cousin Pons brings this through,” said the President, addressing his wife after Pons had departed, “we ought to settle an income upon him equal to his salary at the theatre.”

“Certainly,” said the lady; and Cecile was informed that if the proposed suitor found favor in her eyes, she must undertake to induce the old musician to accept a munificence in such bad taste.