Conscience Part 8

"Then let us begin by making a good fire. I wet my feet coming from the station."

"I do not know whether there is any wood."

"Let us see."

She took the candle and they pa.s.sed into the kitchen, which, like the dining-room, was a laboratory, a stable where Saniel kept in cages pigs from India and rabbits for his experiments, and where Joseph heaped pell-mell the things that were in his way, without paying any attention to the stove in which there never had been a fire. But their search was vain; there was everything in this kitchen except fire-wood.

"Do you value these boxes?" she asked, caressing a little pig that she had taken in her arms.

"Not at all; they enclosed the perfumes and tonics, but they are useless now."

They returned to the office, Saniel carrying the boxes.

"We will set the table here," she said, gayly, for Saniel told her that the dining-room was uninviting, as it was a small bacteriological laboratory.

The table was set by Phillis, who went and came, walking about with a gracefulness that Saniel admired.

"You are doing nothing," she said.

"I am watching you and thinking."

"And the result of these thoughts?"

"It is that you have a fund of good-humor and gayety, an exuberance of life, that would enliven a man condemned to death."

"And what would have become of us, I should like to know, if I had been melancholy and discouraged when we lost my poor papa? He was joy itself, singing all day long, laughing and joking. He brought me up, and I am like him. Mamma, as you know, is melancholy and nervous, looking on the dark side, and Florentin is like her. I obtained a place for Florentin, I found work for mamma and for myself. We all took courage, and gradually we became calm."

She looked at him with a smile that said:

"Will you let me do for you what I have done for others?"

But she did not speak these words. On the contrary, she immediately endeavored to destroy the impression which she believed her words had made upon him.

"Go and bring some water," she said, "and I will light the fire."

When he returned, carrying a carafe, the fire blazed brightly, lighting the whole room. Phillis was seated at the desk, writing.

"What are you doing?" he asked in surprise.

"I am writing our menu, for you know we are not going to sit down at the table like the bourgeois. How do you like it?"

She read it to him.

"Sardines de Nantes."

"Cuisse de dinde rotie."

"Terrine de pate de foie gras aux truffes du Perigord."

"But this is a feast."

"Did you think that I would offer you a fricandeau au jus?"

She continued:

"Fromage de Brie."

"Choux a la creme vanillge."

"Pomme de Normandie."

"Wine."

"Ah! Voila! What wine? I do not wish to deceive you. Let us put, 'Wine from the wine-seller at the corner.' And now we will sit down."

As he was about to seat himself, she said:

"You do not give me your arm to conduct me to the table. If we do not do things seriously and methodically we shall not believe in them, and perhaps the Perigord truffles will change into little black pieces of anything else."

When they were seated opposite to each other, she continued, jesting:

"My dear doctor, did you go to the representation of Don Juan, on Monday?"

And Saniel, who, in spite of all, had kept a sober face, now laughed loudly.

"Charming!" she cried, clapping her hands. "No more preoccupation; no more cares. Look into my eyes, dear Victor, and think only of the present hour, of the joy of being together, of our love."

She reached her hand over the table, and he pressed it in his.

"Very well." The dinner continued gayly, Saniel replying to Phillis's smiles, who would not permit the conversation to languish. She helped him to each dish, poured out his wine, leaving her chair occasionally to put a piece of wood on the fire, and such shoutings and laughter had never been heard before in that office.

However, she noticed that, little by little, Saniel's face, that relaxed one moment, was the next clouded by the preoccupation and bitterness that she had tried hard to chase away. She would make a new effort.

"Does not this charming little dinner give you the wish to repeat it?"

"How? Where?"

"As I am able to come this evening without making mamma uneasy, I shall find some excuse to come again next week."

He shook his head.

"Have you engagements for the whole of next week?" she asked with uneasiness.

"Where shall I be next week, to-morrow, in a few days?"

"You alarm me. Explain, I beg of you. O Victor, have pity! Do not leave me in suspense."

"You are right; I ought to tell you everything, and not let your tender heart torment itself, trying to explain my preoccupation."