This increased Madame Duveyrier’s anger. She no longer spoke, for fear of saying too much before the servants. Her husband did not, apparently, care a button for their interests! Had she only been acquainted with the law! And she could not remain still; she kept walking up and down before the bed. Octave, whose attention was diverted by the sight of the tickets, looked at the formidable apparatus which covered the table; it was a big oak box, filled with a series of cardboard tickets, scrupulously sorted, the stupid work of a lifetime. Just as he was reading on one of these tickets: “‘Isidore Charbotel;’ ‘Exhibition of 1857,’ ‘Atalanta;’ ‘Exhibition of 1859,’ ‘The Lion of Androcles;’ ‘Exhibition of 1861,’ ‘Portrait of Monsieur P——-,’” Clotilde went and stood before him and said resolutely, in a low voice:
“Go and fetch him.”
And, as he evinced his surprise, she seemed, with a shrug of her shoulders, to cast off the story about the report of the affair of the Rue de Provence, one of those eternal pretexts which she invented for her acquaintances. She let out everything in her emotion.
“You know, Rue de la Cerisaie. All our friends know it.”
He wished to protest.
“I assure you, madame———-”
“Do not stand up for him!” resumed she. “I am only too pleased; he can stay there. Ah! good heavens! if it were not for my poor father!”
Octave bowed. Julie was wiping Monsieur Vabre’s eye with the corner of a towel; but the ink had dried, and the smudge remained in the skin, which was marked with livid streaks. Madame Duveyrier told her not to rub so hard; then she returned to the young man, who was already at the door.
“Not a word to any one,” murmured she. “It is needless to upset the house. Take a cab, call there, and bring him back in spite of everything.”
When he had gone, she sank onto a chair beside the patient’s pillow. He had not recovered consciousness; his breathing alone, a deep and painful breathing, troubled the mournful silence of the chamber. Then, the doctor not arriving, finding herself alone with the two servants, who stood by with frightened looks, she burst out into a terrible fit of sobbing, in a paroxysm of deep grief.