“You are very fortunate, madame; marriages are so difficult to arrange in these days.”

“What can one do?  It was chance; but marriages are often made in that way.”

“Ah! well.  So you are going to marry Cecile?” said Mme. Cardot.

“Yes,” said Cecile’s mother, fully understanding the meaning of the “so.”  “We were very particular, or Cecile would have been established before this.  But now we have found everything we wish:  money, good temper, good character, and good looks; and my sweet little girl certainly deserves nothing less.  M. Brunner is a charming young man, most distinguished; he is fond of luxury, he knows life; he is wild about Cecile, he loves her sincerely; and in spite of his three or four millions, Cecile is going to accept him.—­We had not looked so high for her; still, store is no sore.”

“It was not so much the fortune as the affection inspired by my daughter which decided us,” the Presidente told Mme. Lebas.  “M.  Brunner is in such a hurry that he wants the marriage to take place with the least possible delay.”

“Is he a foreigner?”

“Yes, madame; but I am very fortunate, I confess.  No, I shall not have a son-in-law, but a son.  M. Brunner’s delicacy has quite won our hearts.  No one would imagine how anxious he was to marry under the dotal system.  It is a great security for families.  He is going to invest twelve hundred thousand francs in grazing land, which will be added to Marville some day.”

More variations followed on the morrow.  For instance—­M.  Brunner was a great lord, doing everything in lordly fashion; he did not haggle.  If M. de Marville could obtain letters of naturalization, qualifying M. Brunner for an office under Government (and the Home Secretary surely could strain a point for M. de Marville), his son-in-law would be a peer of France.  Nobody knew how much money M. Brunner possessed; “he had the finest horses and the smartest carriages in Paris!” and so on and so on.

From the pleasure with which the Camusots published their hopes, it was pretty clear that this triumph was unexpected.

Immediately after the interview in Pons’ museum, M. de Marville, at his wife’s instance, begged the Home Secretary, his chief, and the attorney for the crown to dine with him on the occasion of the introduction of this phoenix of a son-in-law.

The three great personages accepted the invitation, albeit it was given on short notice; they all saw the part that they were to play in the family politics, and readily came to the father’s support.  In France we are usually pretty ready to assist the mother of marriageable daughters to hook an eligible son-in-law.  The Count and Countess Popinot likewise lent their presence to complete the splendor of the occasion, although they thought the invitation in questionable taste.

There were eleven in all.  Cecile’s grandfather, old Camusot, came, of course, with his wife to a family reunion purposely arranged to elicit a proposal from M. Brunner.