Her first step when they were alone was to ask
him,--
"Do you owe anything here?"
Balthazar colored, and replied with an embarrassed air:--
"I don't know, but Lemulquinier can tell you. That worthy fellow knows
more about my affairs than I do myself."
Marguerite rang for the valet: when he came she studied, almost
involuntarily, the faces of the two old men.
"What does monsieur want?" asked Lemulquinier.
Marguerite, who was all pride and dignity, felt an oppression at her
heart as she perceived from the tone and manner of the servant that
some mortifying familiarity had grown up between her father and the
companion of his labors.
"My father cannot make out the account of what he owes in this place
without you," she said.
"Monsieur," began Lemulquinier, "owes--"
At these words Balthazar made a sign to his valet which Marguerite
intercepted; it humiliated her.
"Tell me all that my father owes," she said.
"Monsieur owes, here, about three thousand francs to an apothecary who
is a wholesale dealer in drugs; he has supplied us with pearl-ash and
lead, and zinc and the reagents--"
"Is that all?" asked Marguerite.
Again Balthazar made a sign to Lemulquinier, who replied, as if under
a spell,--
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"Very good," she said, "I will give them to you."
Balthazar kissed her joyously and said,--
"You are an angel, my child."
He breathed at his ease and glanced at her with eyes that were less
sad; and yet, in spite of this apparent joy, Marguerite easily
detected the signs of deep anxiety upon his face, and felt certain
that the three thousand francs represented only the pressing debts of
his laboratory.
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