man who is going to
marry her and he is an honest fellow with whom everything can yet be
satisfactorily arranged. I will see to the matter myself."

With that he went out of the room, wishing to avoid any further
discussion, and taking the silence with which his words were received to
mean acquiescence.

As soon as the door had closed after his son-in-law, the baron
exclaimed:

"Oh, this is more than I can stand!"

Jeanne, catching sight of her father's horrified expression, burst into
a clear laugh which rang out as it used to do whenever she had seen
something very funny:

"Papa, papa!" she cried. "Did you hear the tone in which he said 'twenty
thousand francs!'"

The baroness, whose smiles lay as near the surface as her tears,
quivered with laughter as she saw Jeanne's gayety, and thought of her
son-in-law's furious face, and his indignant exclamations and determined
attempt to prevent this money, which was not his, being given to the
girl he had seduced. Finally the baron caught the contagion and they all
three laughed till they ached as in the happy days of old. When they
were a little calmer, Jeanne said:

"It is very funny, but really I don't seem to mind in the least what he
says or does now. I look upon him quite as a stranger, and I can hardly
believe I am his wife. You see I am able to laugh at his--his want of
delicacy."

And the parents and child involuntarily kissed each other, with smiles
on their lips, though the tears were not very far from their eyes.

Two days after this scene, when Julien had gone out for a ride, a tall,
young fellow of about four or five-and-twenty, dressed in a brand-new
blue blouse, which hung in stiff folds, climbed stealthily over the
fence, as if he had been hiding there all the morning, crept along the
Couillards' ditch, and went round to the other side of the chateau where
Jeanne and her father and mother were sitting under the plane-tree. He
took off his cap and awkwardly bowed as he came towards them, and, when
he was within speaking distance, mumbled:

"Your servant, monsieur le baron, madame and company." Then, as no one
said anything to him he introduced himself as "Desire Lecoq."

This name failing to explain his presence at the chateau, the baron
asked:

"What do you want?"

The peasant was very disconcerted when he found he had to state his
business. He hesitated, stammered, cast his eyes from the cap he held in
his hands to the chateau roof and back