The domestic changes produced at the Rogrons’ house by Pierrette’s residence there were studied by Vinet and the Colonel with the cunning of a fox bent on getting into a fowl-house, and uneasy at discovering a new creature on the scene. They both paid calls at long intervals, so as not to scare Mademoiselle Sylvie; they found various excuses for chatting with Rogron, and made themselves masters of the situation with an air of reserve and dignity that the great Tartufe might have admired. The Colonel and the lawyer spent at the Rogrons’ the evening of the very day when Sylvie had refused, in very harsh terms, to let Pierrette go to Madame Tiphaine’s. On hearing of her refusal, the Colonel and the lawyer looked at each other as folks who know their Provins.
“She positively tried to make a fool of you?” said the lawyer, “We warned Rogron long ago of what has now happened. There is no good to be got out of those people.”
“What can you expect of the Anti-national Party?” cried the Colonel, curling up his moustache and interrupting Vinet. “If we had tried to get you away from them, you might have thought that we had some malicious motive for speaking to you so. But why, mademoiselle, if you are fond of a little game, should you not play boston in the evenings at home in your own house? Is it impossible to find anyone in the place of such idiots as the Julliards? Vinet and I play boston; we will find a fourth. Vinet might introduce his wife to you; she is very nice, and she is one of the Chargeboeufs. You will not be like those apes in the upper town; you will not expect a good little housewife, who is compelled by her family’s disgraceful conduct to do all her own housework, to dress like a duchess—and she has the courage of a lion and the gentleness of a lamb.”
Sylvie Rogron displayed her long yellow teeth in a smile at the Colonel, who endured the horrible phenomenon very well, and even assumed a flattering air.
“If there are but four of us, we cannot play boston every evening,” replied she.
“Why, where else have I to go—an old soldier like me, who has nothing to do, and lives on his pensions? The lawyer is free every evening. Besides, you will have company, I promise you,” he added, with a mysterious air.
“You have only to declare yourselves frankly opposed to the Ministerial party in Provins, and hold your own against them,” said Vinet. “You would see how popular you would be in Provins; you would have a great many people on your side. You would make the Tiphaines furious by having an Opposition salon. Well, then, let us laugh at others, if others laugh at us. The ‘clique’ do not spare you, I can tell you.”
“What do they say?” asked Sylvie.
In country towns there is always more than one safety-valve by which gossip finds a vent from one set into another. Vinet had heard all that had been said about the Rogrons in the drawing-rooms from which the haberdashers had been definitively banished. The supernumerary judge Desfondrilles, the archaeologist, was of neither party. This man, like some other independent members of society, repeated everything he heard, out of provincial habit, and Vinet had had the benefit of his chitchat. The malicious lawyer repeated Madame Tiphaine’s pleasantries, with added venom. As he revealed the practical jokes of which Sylvie and Rogron had been the unconscious victims, he stirred the rage and aroused the revengeful spirit of these two arid souls, craving some aliment for their mean passions.
A few days later Vinet brought his wife, a well-bred woman, shy, neither plain nor pretty, very meek, and very conscious of her misfortune. Madame Vinet was fair, rather worn by the cares of her penurious housekeeping, and very simply dressed. No woman could have better pleased Sylvie. Madame Vinet put up with Sylvie’s airs, and gave way to her like a woman accustomed to give way. On her round forehead, her rose-pink cheeks, in her slow, gentle eyes, there were traces of those deep reflections, that clear-sighted thoughtfulness, which women who are used to suffering bury under perfect silence. The influence of the Colonel, displaying for Sylvie’s behoof courtieresque graces that seemed wrung from his soldierly roughness, with that of the wily Vinet, soon made itself felt by Pierrette. The child, the pretty squirrel, shut up in the house, or going out only with old Sylvie, was every instant checked by a “Don’t touch that, Pierrette!” and by incessant sermons on holding herself up. Pierrette stooped and held her shoulders high; her cousin wanted her to be as straight as herself, and she was like a soldier presenting arms to his Colonel; she would sometimes give her little slaps on her back to make her hold herself up. The free and lighthearted child of the Marais learned to measure her movements and imitate an automaton.
One evening, which marked the beginning of the second period, Pierrette, whom the three visitors had not seen in the drawing-room during the evening, came to kiss her cousins and courtesy to the company before going to bed. Sylvie coldly offered her cheek to the pretty little thing, as if to be kissed and have done with it. The action was so cruelly significant that tears started from Pierrette’s eyes.
“Have you pricked yourself, my little Pierrette?” said the abominable Vinet.
“What is the matter with you?” asked Sylvie severely.
“Nothing,” said the poor child, going to kiss Rogron.
“Nothing?” repeated Sylvie. “You cannot be crying for nothing!”
“What is it, my little pet?” said Madame Vinet.
“My rich cousin Sylvie does not treat me so well as my poor grandmother!”
“Your grandmother stole your money,” said Sylvie, “and your cousin will leave you hers.”
The Colonel and Vinet exchanged covert glances.
“I would rather be robbed and loved,” said Pierrette.
“Very well, you shall be sent back to the place you came from.”
“But
