“Ah, God be with you! So you have come to Paris? Where from? Since when?”
Then, when she heard how Numa had disappointed them, she rang for her governess, she too a lady in a bonnet, and all three set off for the Ministry. It was something to see the bows and reverences made to them by all those old beadles who ran ahead of them to open the doors.
“So you have seen him, then, the Minister?” timidly ventured Valmajour as his sister stopped to breathe.
“Seen him! I certainly have; what did I tell you, you poor bédigas (calf), that you must get the young lady on your side! She arranged the whole thing in no time. There is to be a great musical function next week at the Minister’s and you are to play before the directors of the Conservatory of Music. And after that, cra-cra! the contract drawn up and signed!”
But the best of all was that the young lady had driven her home in the carriage of the Minister.
“And she was very anxious to come upstairs with me,” added the peasant girl, winking at her father and distorting her pretty face with a meaning grimace. The father’s old face, with its complexion like a dried fig, wrinkled up in a look of slyness which meant: “I understand; not a word!” He no longer taunted the taborist. Valmajour himself, very quiet, did not understand his sister’s perfidious meaning; he could think only of his coming appearance, and, taking down his instruments, he passed all his pieces in review, sending the notes as a farewell all over the house and down the glass-covered passage in floods of trills on rolling cadences.
CHAPTER VIII.
RENEWAL OF YOUTH.
The Minister and his wife had finished breakfast in their dining-room on the first floor, a room much too big and showy, that never could be thoroughly thawed out, even with heavy curtains and the heat of a furnace that warmed the whole house, and the steam from the hot dishes of a copious repast. By some chance that morning they were alone together. On the table amidst the dessert, always a great feature in the Southerner’s meal, lay a box of cigars and a cup of vervain, which is the tea of the Provençal, and large boxes filled with cards of invitation to a series of concerts to be given by the Minister. They were addressed to senators, deputies, clergymen, professors, academicians, people of society—all the motley crowd that is generally bidden to public receptions; and some larger boxes for the cards to the privileged guests asked to the first series of “little concerts.”
Mme. Roumestan was running them over, occasionally pausing at some name, watched by her husband out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to be absorbed in selecting a cigar, while really his furtive glance was noting the disapprobation and reserve on her quiet face at the promiscuous way this first batch of invitations had been selected.
But Rosalie asked no questions; all these preparations did not interest her. Since their installation at the Ministry she had felt herself farther off than ever from her husband, separated by his many engagements, too many guests and a public way of living that had destroyed all intimacy. To this was added the ever-bitter sorrow of childlessness; never to hear about her the pattering of tireless little feet, nor any of those peals of baby laughter that would have banished from their dining-room that icy look as if a hotel where they were stopping for a day or two, with its impersonal air on tablecloth, furniture, silver and all the sumptuous things to be found in any public place.