“Respectable people,” he said, “never read about such matters, and, consequently, none of our friends will ever know of it. It won’t happen again, for I mean to cut loose from the fellows who led me into that fix. I mean to go with respectable people. I shall begin all over, and earn a living in an honest way.”
Madame was delighted; she never knew Raste to talk so reasonably and to be so thoughtful. After all, his punishment hadn’t done him any harm. He had had time to think, and these good resolves were the result of his seclusion from the friends who had nearly proved his ruin. Therefore, greatly relieved of her anxieties, she took the prodigal back into her heart and home, and cooked him an excellent supper, not of a fatted calf, but of a fatted pig that Madame Paichoux had sent her as a preliminary offering toward closer acquaintance.
For several days Raste remained quietly at work around the house, assisting his mother in various ways, and showing such a helpful and kindly disposition that madame was more than ever enchanted with him. She even went so far as to propose that they should form a partnership and extend their business.
“My credit is good,” said madame, proudly; “I can buy a larger stock, and we might hire the store on the corner, and add a grocery department, by and by.”
“But the capital? We haven’t the capital,” returned Raste doubtfully.
“Oh, I’ll provide the capital, or the credit, which is just as good,” replied madame, with the air of a millionaire.
“Well,” said Raste, “you go out among the merchants and see what you can do, and I’ll stay here and wait on the customers. There’s nothing like getting used to it, you know. But send that young one over to the ‘Countess,’ or to some of her swell friends. I don’t want to be bothered with her everlasting questions. Did you ever see such a little monkey, sitting up holding that long-legged bird, and asking a fellow a lot of hard questions, as serious as old Father Ducros himself? By the way, I saw Father Ducros; he’s just back from Cuba. I met him yesterday, and he asked me why you didn’t come to church.”
Madame went out to see about the new venture with Father Ducros’s name ringing in her ears, and was absent for several hours. When she returned she found the house closed and Raste gone.
In a moment Lady Jane came running with the key. Mr. Raste had brought it to her, and had told her that he was tired tending shop, and was going for a walk.
Madame smiled, and said as she took the key: