a brilliant white flame.
She was lame in the right leg, and her chest was muffled in a rusty brown knitted garment, stained and bleached by rain and sun. She looked like some poor servant, dirty and wretched.
“There’s mother,” said the child.
When she was near her dwelling she regarded the strangers with an evil, suspicious look; then went into the house as though she had not seen them.
She looked old; her face was hollowed, yellow, hard, the wooden face of rustics.
Monsieur d’Apreval called her back.
“I say, we came in to ask you to sell us two glasses of milk.”
Having set down her pails, she reappeared in the doorway and muttered:
“I don’t sell milk.”
“We’re very thirsty. The lady is old and very tired. Can’t we get something to drink?”
The peasant woman stared at him with surly, uneasy eyes. At last she made up her mind.
“Seeing you’re here, I’ll give you some all the same,” she said, disappearing into the house.
Then the child came out carrying two chairs, which she set under an apple tree; and the mother came, in her turn, with two foaming cups of milk that she placed in the visitors’ hands.
She remained standing in front of them as though to keep watch on them and guess their intentions.
“You’re from Fécamp?” she said.
“Yes,” replied Monsieur d’Apreval, “we’re there for the summer.”
Then, after a pause, he added: “Could you sell us chickens every week?”
She hesitated, then replied:
“I might. Would you be wanting young birds?”
“Yes, young ones.”
“What do you pay for them at market?”
D’Apreval, who did not know, turned to his companion: “What do you pay for chickens, dear—young ones?”
“Four francs and four francs fifty,” she faltered, her eyes full of tears.
The farmer’s wife looked sideways at her, much surprised, and asked:
“Is the poor lady ill, that she’s cryin’?”
He did not know what to answer, and stammered:
“No. … No. … She … she lost her watch on the way, a beautiful watch, and it grieves her. If anyone picks it up, let us know.”
Madame Bénédict thought this queer, and did not answer.
Suddenly she said:
“Here’s himself.”
She alone had seen him come in, for she was facing the gate. D’Apreval started violently; Madame de Cadour nearly fell as she turned frantically round in her chair.
A man was standing ten paces off, leading a cow at the end of a cord, bent double, breathing hard.
“Damn the brute!” he muttered, taking no notice of the strangers.
He passed them, going towards the cowshed, in which he disappeared.
The old woman’s tears were suddenly dried up; she was too bewildered for speech or thought: her son, this was her son!
D’Apreval, stabbed by the same thought, said in a troubled voice:
“That is Monsieur Bénédict, is it not?”
“Who told you his name?” asked the farmer’s wife, distrustful of them.
“The blacksmith at the corner of the high road,” he replied.
Then all were silent, their eyes fixed on the door of the cowshed, which made a sort of black hole in the wall of the building. They could see nothing inside, but vague sounds were to be heard, movements, steps muffled in the straw strewn on the ground.
He reappeared on the threshold, wiping his brow, and came back towards the house with a long slow step that jerked him up at every pace he took.
Again he passed in front of the strangers without appearing to notice them, and said to his wife:
“Go draw me a mug of cider; I be thirsty.”
Then he entered his dwelling. His wife went off to the cellar leaving the two Parisians by themselves.
Madame de Cadour was quite distracted.
“Let us go, Henry, let us go,” she faltered.
D’Apreval took her arm, helped her to rise, and supporting her with all his strength—for he felt certain that she would fall—he led her away, after throwing five francs on to one of the chairs.
As soon as they had passed through the gate, she began to sob, torn with grief, and stammering:
“Oh! Oh! Is this what you’ve made of him?”
He was very pale.
“I did what I could,” he answered harshly. “His farm is worth eighty thousand francs. It isn’t every middle-class child who has such a marriage-portion.”
They walked slowly back, without speaking another word. She was still sobbing; the tears ran unceasing from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
At last they stopped, and the pair reached Fécamp.
Monsieur de Cadour was awaiting them for dinner. He began to laugh and cried out at sight of them:
“There you are, my wife’s got a sunstroke. I’m delighted at it. Upon my word, I think she’s been off her head for some time past.”
Neither answered; and as the husband, rubbing his hands, inquired: “At all events, have you had a nice walk?” D’Apreval replied:
“Delightful, my dear fellow, perfectly delightful.”
Yvette
I
As they left the Café Riche, Jean de Servigny said to Léon Saval:
“We’ll walk, if you don’t mind walking. It’s too fine to take a cab.”
“It will suit me perfectly,” answered his friend.
“It’s barely eleven,” continued Jean. “We shall be there long before midnight, so let us go slowly.”
A restless crowd swarmed on the boulevard, the crowd which on summer nights is always to be seen there, contented and merry, walking, drinking, and talking, streaming past like a river. Here and there a café flung a brilliant splash of light on to the group which sat outside, drinking at round little tables loaded with bottles and glasses, and obstructing the hurrying crowd of passersby. And in the road the cabs, with their red, blue, and green eyes, passed swiftly across the harsh glare of the lighted front, and for an instant revealed the silhouette of the thin, trotting horse, the profile of the driver on the box, and the dark, square body of the vehicle. The Urbaine cabs gleamed as the light caught their yellow panels.
The two friends walked slowly along, smoking their cigars. They were in evening dress, their overcoats on their arms, flowers in their button holes and their hats a little on one side, with the careless tilt affected
