“Ha! guardian, indeed! a fine thing, guardian!” cried the Cardinal.  “To talk of a woman of my age, just because I wanted to see if my uncle owned anything at all, to talk to me of the police!  It’s hateful! it’s disgusting!”

“Come, come!” said Cerizet, “you needn’t complain; you got off cheaply.”

“Well, and you, who broke the locks and said you were going to take the diamonds, under color of marrying my daughter!  Just as if she would have you,—­a legitimate daughter like her!  ‘Never, mother,’ said she; ‘never will I give my heart to a man with such a nose.’”

“So you’ve found her, have you?” said Cerizet.

“Not until last night.  She has left her blackguard of a player, and she is now, I flatter myself, in a fine position, eating money; has her citadine by the month, and is much respected by a barrister who would marry her at once, but he has got to wait till his parents die, for the father happens to be mayor, and the government wouldn’t like it.”

“What mayor?”

“11th arrondissement,—­Minard, powerfully rich, used to do a business in cocoa.”

“Ah! very good! very good!  I know all about him.  You say Olympe is living with his son?”

“Well, not to say living together, for that would make talk, though he only sees her with good motives.  He lives at home with his father, but he has bought their furniture, and has put it, and my daughter, too, into a lodging in the Chausee d’Antin; stylish quarter, isn’t it?”

“It seems to me pretty well arranged,” said Cerizet; “and as Heaven, it appears, didn’t destine us for each other—­”

“No, yes, well, that’s how it was; and I think that girl is going to give me great satisfaction; and there’s something I want to consult you about.”

“What?” demanded Cerizet.

“Well, my daughter being in luck, I don’t think I ought to continue to cry fish in the streets; and now that my uncle has disinherited me, I have, it seems to me, a right to an ‘elementary allowance.’”

“You are dreaming, my poor woman; your daughter is a minor; it is you who ought to be feeding her; the law doesn’t require her to give you aliment.”

“Then do you mean,” said Madame Cardinal, “that those who have nothing are to give to those who have much?  A fine thing such a law as that!  It’s as bad as guardians who, for nothing at all, talk about calling the police.  Yes!  I’d like to see ’em calling the police to me!  Let ’em guillotine me!  It won’t prevent my saying that the rich are swindlers; yes, swindlers! and the people ought to make another revolution to get their rights; and then, my lad, you, and my daughter, and barrister Minard, and that little old guardian, you’ll all come down under it—­”

Perceiving that his ex-mother-in-law was reaching stage of exaltation that was not unalarming, Cerizet hastened to get away, her epithets pursuing him for more than a hundred feet; but he comforted himself by thinking that he would make her pay for them the next time she came to his back to ask for a “convenience.”