“Come, be calm,” said Thuillier, not disturbed himself, the admission of the “Echo” into the polemic making another Pangloss of him.  “I’ll settle all that.”

“You, Flavie,” said Brigitte, when Thuillier had departed to his wife, “you will do me the pleasure to go down to your own apartment, and tell Mademoiselle Celeste that I don’t choose to see her now, because if she made me any irritating answer I might box her ears.  You’ll tell her that I don’t like conspiracies; that she was left at liberty to choose Monsieur Phellion junior if she wanted him, and she did not want him; that the matter is now all arranged, and that if she does not wish to see her ‘dot’ reduced to what you are able to give her, which isn’t as much as a bank-messenger could carry in his waistcoat pocket—­”

“But, my dear Brigitte,” interrupted Flavie, turning upon her at this impertinence, “you may dispense with reminding us in this harsh way of our poverty; for, after all, we have never asked you for anything, and we pay our rent punctually; and as for the ‘dot,’ Monsieur Felix Phellion is quite ready to take Celeste with no more than a bank-messenger could carry in his bag.”

And she emphasized the last word by her way of pronouncing it.

“Ha! so you too are going to meddle in this, are you?” cried Brigitte.  “Very good; go and fetch him, your Felix.  I know, my little woman, that this marriage has never suited you; it IS disagreeable to be nothing more than a mother to your son-in-law.”

Flavie had recovered the coolness she had lost for an instant, and without replying to this speech she merely shrugged her shoulders.

At this moment Thuillier returned; his air of beatitude had deserted him.

“My dear Brigitte,” he said to his sister, “you have a most excellent heart, but at times you are so violent—­”

“Ho!” said the old maid, “am I to be arraigned on this side too?”

“I certainly do not blame you for the cause of the trouble, and I have just rebuked Celeste for her assumption; but there are proper forms that must be kept.”

“Forms! what are you talking about?  What forms have I neglected?”

“But, my dear friend, to raise your hand against your sister!”

“I, raise my hand against that imbecile?  What nonsense you talk!”

“And besides,” continued Thuillier, “a woman of Celeste’s age can’t be kept in prison.”

“Your wife!—­have I put her in prison?”

“You can’t deny it, for I found the door of her room double-locked.”

“Parbleu! all this because in my anger at the infamous things she was spitting at me I may have turned the key of the door without intending it.”

“Come, come,” said Thuillier, “these are not proper actions for people of our class.”

“Oh! so it is I who am to blame, is it?  Well, my lad, some day you’ll remember this, and we shall see how your household will get along when I have stopped taking care of it.”