Uncle Loyer had a room in the little flat of the Avenue de Clichy, where he came to stay for a while every spring, at which season he was subject to attacks of giddiness and drowsiness, for he was getting old. As soon, however, as his head felt better and his tread became more assured, he returned to the attic-room, where he had lived for half a century, a room where he had twice been arrested by the agents of the Empire, and from which he could see the trees of the Luxembourg. He still kept the pipe of Jules Grévy in this garret of his.
This pipe was perhaps the most treasured possession of the old fellow, who had gone through many phases as a Member of Parliament: the days of eloquence and the days of affairs. He had controlled as Minister of the Interior the secret funds of three budgets. He had bought many a conscience for his party, a corrupter of others, but incorruptible himself. He had always had an infinite indulgence for the hypocrisies of his friends, but was jealous himself of retaining in the midst of his power the vantage-ground of a simulated poverty that was at once cynical, obstinate, deep-rooted, and honourable.
His eye was dim now and his mind inactive, but in the intervals, when his old skill and decisive spirit returned to him, he applied all his remaining vigour to concentrated thought, and the game of billiards. Madame Cheiral, whose intelligence was limited and whose skill but moderate, did what she liked with the cunning, quiet, silent, and coarse-minded old man, who for the sixth time in his career had been selected as a member of the cabinet that had followed upon the heels of the clerical cabinet, and who saw his nephew fulfilling the indefinite duties of secretary-in-chief without an idea of leadership, nor a glimmer of moral principle. No doubt, Loyer was somewhat surprised to find that his nephew had reactionary and clerical tendencies, but he was too much inclined to apoplexy to run the risk of thwarting his sister.
Madame Cheiral was staying at home that day, and when Madame Worms-Clavelin called to see her somewhat late in the afternoon, when no further callers were expected, she received her very cordially. They wished each other good-bye, for the préfet’s wife was returning home on the morrow.
“Going already, darling?”
“I must,” replied Madame Worms-Clavelin sweetly, looking quite innocent in her black feather-trimmed hat.
She always affected this hat when paying calls, likening herself to a plume-bedecked horse attached to a funeral car.
“You must stay and dine with us, dear; we so seldom see you in Paris. We shall be quite alone. I don’t think my brother will be here. He is so busy and engrossed in his work just now! But perhaps Maurice will be with us; the young men of to-day are much steadier than they used to be. Maurice often spends an evening at home with me.”
She began to try to prevail upon Madame Worms-Clavelin with all the persuasive eloquence of a sociable soul.
“We shall be quite among ourselves. Your dress will do very nicely. I assure you we shall be absolutely en famille.”