"
In the heat of his eager rhetoric, old Guillaume had scarcely looked
at his assistant, who was weeping copiously. "Why, Joseph, my poor
boy, what is the matter?"
"Oh, I love her so! Monsieur Guillaume, that my heart fails me; I
believe----"
"Well, well, boy," said the old man, touched, "you are happier than
you know, by God! For she loves you. I know it."
And he blinked his little green eyes as he looked at the young man.
"Mademoiselle Augustine! Mademoiselle Augustine!" exclaimed Joseph
Lebas in his rapture.
He was about to rush out of the room when he felt himself clutched by
a hand of iron, and his astonished master spun him round in front of
him once more.
"What has Augustine to do with this matter?" he asked, in a voice
which instantly froze the luckless Joseph.
"Is it not she that--that--I love?" stammered the assistant.
Much put out by his own want of perspicacity, Guillaume sat down
again, and rested his long head in his hands to consider the
perplexing situation in which he found himself. Joseph Lebas,
shamefaced and in despair, remained standing.
"Joseph," the draper said with frigid dignity, "I was speaking of
Virginie. Love cannot be made to order, I know. I know, too, that you
can be trusted. We will forget all this. I will not let Augustine
marry before Virginie.--Your interest will be ten per cent."
The young man, to whom love gave I know not what power of courage and
eloquence, clasped his hand, and spoke in his turn--spoke for a
quarter of an hour, with so much warmth and feeling, that he altered
the situation.
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