So Montagnon's efforts at consolation with regard to M. Deviolaine were not at all reassuring on that head; and I returned home, therefore, looking very down in the mouth. I kissed my mother more affectionately than usual, and turned to go towards my room.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"I am going to do my composition, mother," I replied.
"You must do it after dinner; it is time for dinner."
"I am not hungry."
"What, not hungry?"
"No, I had some bread-and-butter at Montagnon's."
My mother gazed at me in astonishment; Madame Montagnon had not a reputation for such hospitality.
"Nonsense," she said.
Then she turned to an old friend of hers, who spent nearly all her time at our house, and whose life I worried with tricks, saying, half laughingly, half anxiously:—