On reaching the Rue d’Enfer, when Sandoz had ushered his four friends into his own apartments, he once more vanished into his mother’s room. He remained there for a few moments, and then came out without saying a word, but with the tender, gentle smile habitual to him on such occasions. And immediately afterwards a terrible hubbub, of laughter, argument, and mere shouting, arose in his little flat. Sandoz himself set the example, all the while assisting the charwoman, who burst into bitter language because it was half-past seven, and her leg of mutton was drying up. The five companions, seated at table, were already swallowing their soup, a very good onion soup, when a new comer suddenly appeared.
‘Hallo! here’s Gagnière,’ was the vociferous chorus.
Gagnière, short, slight, and vague looking, with a doll-like startled face, set off by a fair curly beard, stood for a moment on the threshold blinking his green eyes. He belonged to Melun, where his well-to-do parents, who were both dead, had left him two houses; and he had learnt painting, unassisted, in the forest of Fontainebleau. His landscapes were at least conscientiously painted, excellent in intention; but his real passion was music, a madness for music, a cerebral bonfire which set him on a level with the wildest of the band.
‘Am I in the way?’ he gently asked.
‘Not at all; come in!’ shouted Sandoz.
The charwoman was already laying an extra knife and fork.
‘Suppose she lays a place for Dubuche, while she is about it,’ said Claude. ‘He told me he would perhaps come.’
But they were all down upon Dubuche, who frequented women in society. Jory said that he had seen him in a carriage with an old lady and her daughter, whose parasols he was holding on his knees.
‘Where have you come from to be so late?’ asked Fagerolles of Gagnière.
The latter, who was about to swallow his first spoonful of soup, set it in his plate again.