IX

"Well!" exclaimed Renée, entering the dining-room at eleven o'clock,

breathless like a child who had been running, "I thought every one would

be down. Where is mamma?"

"Gone to Paris--shopping," answered M. Mauperin.

"Oh!--and where's Denoisel?"

"He's gone to see the man with the sloping ground, who must have kept

him to luncheon. We'll begin luncheon."

"Good-morning, papa!" And instead of taking her seat Renée went across

to her father and putting her arms round his neck began to kiss him.

"There, there, that's enough--you silly child!" said M. Mauperin,

smiling as he endeavoured to free himself.

"Let me kiss you _tong-fashion_--there--like that," and she pinched his

cheeks and kissed him again.

"What a child you are, to be sure."

"Now look at me. I want to see whether you care for me."

And Renée, standing up after kissing him once more, moved back from her

father, still holding his head between her hands. They gazed at each

other lovingly and earnestly, looking into one another's eyes. The

French window was open and the light, the scents and the various noises

from the garden penetrated into the room. A beam of sunshine darted on

to the table, lighted on the china and made the glass glitter. It was

bright, cheerful weather and a faint breeze was stirring; the shadows of

the leaves trembled slightly on the floor. A vague sound of wings

fluttering in the trees and of birds sporting among the flowers could be

heard in the distance.

"Only we two; how nice!" exclaimed Renée, unfolding her serviette. "Oh,

the table is too large; I am too far away," and taking her knife and

fork she went and sat next her father. "As I have my father all to

myself to-day I'm going to enjoy my father," and so saying she drew her

chair still nearer to him.

"Ah, you remind me of the time when you always wanted to have your

dinner in my pocket. But you were eight years old then."

Renée began to laugh.

"I was scolded yesterday," said M. Mauperin, after a minute's silence,

putting his knife and fork down on his plate.

"Oh!" remarked Renée, looking up at the ceiling in an innocent way and

then letting her eyes fall on her father with a sly look in them such as

one sees in the eyes of a cat. "Really, poor papa! Why were you scolded?

What had you done?"

"Yes, I should advise _you_ to ask me that again; you know better than I

do myself why I was scolded. What do you mean, you dreadful child?"

"Oh, if you are going to lecture me, papa, I shall get up and--I shall

kiss you."

She half rose as she said this, but M. Mauperin interrupted her,

endeavouring to speak in a severe tone:

"Sit down again, Renée, please. You must own, my dear child, that

yesterday----"

"Oh, papa, are you going to talk to me like this on such a beautiful

day?"

"Well, but will you explain?" persisted M. Mauperin, trying to remain

dignified in face of the rebellious expression, made up of smiles

mingled with defiance, in his daughter's eyes. "It was very evident that

you behaved in the way you did purposely."

Renée winked mischievously and nodded her head two or three times

affirmatively.

"I want to speak to you seriously, Renée."

"But I am quite serious, I assure you. I have told you that I was like

that on purpose."

"And why--will you tell me that?"

"Why? Oh, yes, I'll tell you, but on condition that you won't be too

conceited. It was because--because----"

"Because of what?"

"Because I love you much more than that gentleman who was here

yesterday--there now--very much more--it's quite true!"

"But, then, we ought not to have allowed him to come if you did not care

for this young man. We didn't force you into it. It was you yourself who

agreed that he should be invited. On the contrary, your mother and I

believed that this match----"

"Excuse me, papa, but if I had refused M. Reverchon at first sight,

point-blank, you would have said I was unreasonable, mad, senseless. I

fancy I can hear mamma now on the subject. Whereas, as things were, what

is there to reproach me with? I saw M. Reverchon once, and I saw him

again, I had plenty of time to judge him and I knew that I disliked him.

It is very silly, perhaps, but it is nevertheless----"

"But why did you not tell us? We could have found a hundred ways of

getting out of it."

"You are very ungrateful, papa. I have saved you all that worry. The

young man is drawing out of it himself and it is not your fault at all;

I alone am responsible. And this is all the gratitude I get for my

self-sacrifice! Another time----"

"Listen to me, my dear. If I speak to you like this it is because it is

a question of your marriage. Your marriage--ah, it took me a long time

to get reconciled to the idea that--to the idea of being separated from

you. Fathers are selfish, you see; they would like it better if you

never took to yourself wings. They have the greatest difficulty in

making up their minds to it all. They think they cannot be happy without

your smiles, and that the house will be very different when your dress

is not flitting about. But we have to submit to what must be, and now it

seems to me that I shall like my son-in-law. I am getting old, you know,

my dear little Renée," and M. Mauperin took his daughter's hands in his.

"Your father is sixty-eight, my child, he has only just time enough left

to see you settled and happy. Your future, if only you knew it, is my

one thought, my one torment. Your mother loves you dearly, too, I know,

but your character and hers are different; and then, if anything

happened to me. You know we must face things; and at my age. You see the

thought of leaving you without a husband--and children--without any love

which would make up to you for your old father's when he is no longer

with you----"

M. Mauperin could not finish; his daughter had thrown her arms round

him, stifling down her sobs, and her tears were flowing freely on his

waistcoat.

"Oh, it's dreadful of you, dreadful!" she said in a choking voice. "Why

do you talk about it? Never--never!" and with a gesture she waved back

the dark shadow called up by her imagination.

M. Mauperin had taken her on his knee. He put his arms round her, kissed

her forehead and said, "Don't cry, Renée, don't cry!"

"How dreadful! Never!" she repeated once more, as though she were just

rousing herself from some bad dream, and then, wiping her eyes with the

back of her hand, she said to her father: "I must go away and have my

cry out," and with that she escaped.

* * * * *

"That Dardouillet is certainly mad," remarked Denoisel, as he entered

the room. "Just fancy, I could not possibly get rid of him. Ah, you are

alone?"

"Yes, my wife is in Paris, and Renée has just gone upstairs."

"Why, what's the matter, M. Mauperin? You look----"

"Oh, it's nothing--a little scene with Renée that I've just had--about

this marriage--this Reverchon. I was silly enough to tell her that I am

in a hurry to see my grandchildren, that fathers of my age are not

immortal, and thereupon--the child is so sensitive, you know. She is up

in her room now, crying. Don't go up; it will take her a little time to

recover. I'll go and look after my work people."

Denoisel, left to himself, lighted a cigar, picked up a book and went

out to one of the garden seats to read. He had been there about two

hours when he saw Renée coming towards him. She had her hat on and her

animated face shone with joy and a sort of serene excitement.

"Well, have you been out? Where have you come from?"

"Where have I come from?" repeated Renée, unfastening her hat. "Well,

I'll tell you, as you are my friend," and she took her hat off and threw

her head back with that pretty gesture women have for shaking their hair

into place. "I've come from church, and if you want to know what I've

been doing there, why, I've been asking God to let me die before papa. I

was in front of a large statue of the Virgin--you are not to laugh--it

would make me unhappy if you laughed. Perhaps it was the sun or the

effect of gazing at her all the time, I don't know, but it seemed to me

all in a minute that she did like this--" and Renée nodded her head.

"Anyhow, I am very happy and my knees ache, too, I can tell you; for all

the time I was praying I was on my knees, and not on a chair or a

cushion either--but on the stone floor. Ah, I prayed in earnest; God

can't surely refuse me that!"

X

A few days after this M. and Mme. Mauperin, Henri, Renée, and Denoisel

were sitting together after dinner in the little garden which stretched

out at the back of the house, between the walls of the refinery and its

outbuildings. The largest tree in the garden was a fir, and the

rose-trees had been allowed to climb up to its lowest branches, so that

its green arms stirred the roses. Under the tree was a swing, and at the

back of it a sort of thicket of lilacs and witch-elms; there was a round

plot of grass, with a garden bench and a very small pool with a white

curbstone round it and a fountain that did not play. The pool was full

of aquatic plants and a few black newts were swimming in it.

"You don't intend to have any theatricals, then, Renée?" Henri was

saying to his sister. "You've quite given up that idea?"

"Given up--no; but what can I do? It isn't my fault, for I would act

anything--I'd stand on my head. But I can't find any one else, so that,

unless I give a monologue--Denoisel has refused, and as for you, a

sober man like you--well, I suppose it's no use asking."

"I, why, I would act right enough," answered Henri.

"You, Henri?" exclaimed Mme. Mauperin in astonishment.

"And then, too, we are not short of men," continued Renée, "there are

always men to act. It's for the women's parts. Ah, that's the

difficulty--to find ladies. I don't see who is to act with me."

"Oh," said Henri, "if we look about among all the people we know, I'll

wager----"

"Well, let's see: there's M. Durand's daughter. Why, yes--what do you

think? M. Durand's daughter? They are at Saint-Denis; that will be

convenient for the rehearsals. She's rather a simpleton, but I should

think for the rôle of Mme. de Chavigny----"

"Ah," put in Denoisel, "you still want to act 'The Caprice'?"

"Now for a lecture, I suppose? But as I'm going to act with my

brother----"

"And the performance will be for the benefit of the poor, I hope?"

continued Denoisel.

"Why?"

"It would make the audience more disposed to be charitable."

"We'll see about that, sir, we'll see about it. Well, Emma Durand--will

that do? What do you think, mamma?"

"They are not our sort of people, my dear," answered Mme. Mauperin

quickly; "they are all very well at a distance, people like that, but

every one knows where they sprang from--the Rue St. Honoré. Mme. Durand

used to go and receive the ladies at their carriage-door, and M. Durand

would slip out at the back and take the servant-men to have a glass at

the wine-shop round the corner. That's how the Durands made their

fortune."

Although at bottom Mme. Mauperin was an excellent sort of woman she

rarely lost an opportunity of depreciating, in this way and with the

most superb contempt and disgust, the wealth, birth and position of all

the people she knew. It was not out of spite, nor was it for the

pleasure of slandering and backbiting, nor yet because she was envious.

She would refuse to believe in the respectability and uprightness of

people, or even in the wealth they were said to have, simply from a

prodigious _bourgeois_ pride, from a conviction that outside her own

family there could be no good blood, and no integrity; that, with the

exception of her own people, every one was an upstart; that nothing was

substantial except what she possessed, and that what she had not was not

worth having.

"And to think that my wife has tales like that to tell about all the

people we know!" said M. Mauperin.

"Come now, papa--shall we have the pretty little Remoli girl--shall we?"

"Ask your mother. Say on, Mme. Mauperin."

"The Remoli girl? But, my dear, you know--"

"I know nothing."

"Oh! do you mean to say that you don't know her father's history? A poor

Italian stucco worker. He came to Paris without a sou and bought a bit

of ground with a wretched little house at Montparnasse. I don't know

where he got the money from to buy it. Well, this land turned out to be

a regular Montfaucon! He sold thirty thousand pounds' worth of his

precious stuff--and then he's been mixed up with Stock Exchange affairs.

Disgusting!"

"Oh, well," put in Henri, "I fancy you are going out of your way to find

folks. Why don't you ask Mlle. Bourjot? They happen to be at Sannois

now."

"Mlle. Bourjot?" repeated Mme. Mauperin.

"Noémi?" said Renée quickly, "I should just think I should like to ask

her. But this winter I thought her so distant with me. She has something

or other--I don't know----"

"She has, or rather she will have, twelve thousand pounds a year,"

interrupted Denoisel, "and mothers are apt to watch over their

daughters when such is the case. They will not allow them to get too

intimate with a sister who has a brother. They have made her understand

this; that's about the long and short of it."

"Then, too, they are so high and mighty, those folks are; they might

have descended from--And yet," continued Mme. Mauperin, breaking off and

turning to her son, "they have always been very pleasant with you,

Henri, haven't they? Mme. Bourjot is always very nice to you?"

"Yes, and she has complained several times of your not going to her

soirées; she says you don't take Renée often enough to see her

daughter."

"Really?" exclaimed Renée, very delighted.

"My dear," said Mme. Mauperin, "what do you think of what Henri

says--Mlle. Bourjot?"

"What objection do you want me to make?"

"Well, then," said Mme. Mauperin, "Henri's idea shall be carried out.

We'll go on Saturday, shall we, my dear? And you'll come with us,

Henri?"

A few hours later every one was in bed with the exception of Henri

Mauperin. He was walking up and down in his room puffing on a cigar that

had gone out, and every now and then he appeared to be smiling at his

own thoughts.