Angelot drew himself very upright, folded his arms, and turned to face the family council.
"See what it is to have an uncle!" he said, and his voice, though clear enough, was not quite so proud and convincing as his attitude. "He treats me like a child crying for the moon. If he could, he would fetch the moon out of the sky for me. But his kind pains are quite thrown away, mesdames et messieurs, for—I do not want the moon, any more than the moon wants me!"
He almost laughed; and only the quick change of colour in his young face showed that any feeling lay behind the words which sounded—in Monsieur Joseph's ears at least—heartlessly playful.
Angelot stepped up to Madame de Sainfoy and respectfully kissed her hand. "Bonsoir, madame!"
"Bonsoir, Angelot."
She spoke coldly; she was still uneasy, still suspicious; she gave him a keen look, and his eyelids were not lifted to meet it. In another moment he was gone.
Then the others gathered round poor Monsieur Joseph, and tried to make him explain his wild behaviour. At first he stared at them vaguely, then in a few quick words took all the blame upon himself. Yes, it was an idea that had suddenly seized him. His love for Angelot, the beauty and sweetness of Hélène, a dream of happiness for them both! A pastoral poem, in short! but it seemed that the young man was not worthy of his place as its hero.
"It seems, after all, I am more poetical than you," he said rather bitterly to Urbain.
"My dear," his brother said, "poetry at its best is the highest good sense. Now your idea, as the boy himself let us know, is moonstruck madness."
"Ah, moonstruck madness! Ah, the boy! Yes, yes," said Monsieur Joseph, dreamily, and he also took his leave.