He was surprised that it was already known in the neighborhood.
The young woman had called her husband. As he intended speaking to Monsieur Mouret on the morrow, he might just as well do so then. And Auguste abruptly offered Octave in a sour way a berth in his employ. The young man, taken unawares, hesitated and was on the point of refusing, thinking of the small importance of the house. But he caught sight of Berthe’s pretty face, as she smiled at him with her air of welcome, with the gay glance he had already twice encountered, on the day of his arrival and the day of the wedding.
“Well! yes,” said he resolutely.
CHAPTER X.
THEN, Octave found himself brought into closer contact with the Duveyriers. Often, when Madame Duveyrier returned from a walk, she would come through her brother’s shop, and stop to talk a minute with Berthe; and, the first time that she saw the young man behind one of the counters, she amiably reproached him for not keeping his word, reminding him of his long-standing promise to come and see her one evening, and try his voice at the piano. She wished to give a second performance of the “Benediction of the Daggers,” at one of her first Saturdays at home of the coming winter, but with two extra tenors, something very complete.
“If it does not interfere with your arrangements,” said Berthe one day to Octave, “you might go up to my sister-in-law’s after dinner. She is expecting you.”
She maintained toward him the attitude of a mistress, simply polite.
“The fact is,” he observed, “I intended arranging these shelves this evening.”
“Do not trouble about them,” resumed she, “there are plenty of people here to do that. I give you your evening.”
Toward nine o’clock, Octave found Madame Duveyrier awaiting him in her grand white and gold drawing-room. Everything was ready, the piano open, the candles lit. A lamp placed on a small round table beside the instrument only imperfectly lighted the room, one half of which remained in shadow. Seeing the young woman alone, he thought it proper to ask after Monsieur Duveyrier. She replied that he was very well; his colleagues had selected him to report on a very grave affair, and he had just gone out to obtain certain information respecting it.