This unexpected attack quite dumbfounded the husband for a moment. Rachel turned round, still holding the leg of mutton; and, placing her hand upon her heart, she protested.
“Oh! madame, how can you think so? I who respect madame so much!”
“She’s mad!” said Auguste, shrugging his shoulders. “Don’t take the trouble to defend yourself, my girl. She’s mad!”
But a noise behind his back caused him some anxiety. It was Saturnin, who had violently thrown down one of the half-polished shoes to fly to his sister’s assistance. With a terrible expression in his face and his fists clenched, he stuttered out that he would strangle the dirty rascal if he again called her mad. Thoroughly frightened, Auguste sought refuge behind the filter, calling out:
“It’s really become unbearable; I can no longer make a remark to you without his thrusting himself in between us! I allowed him to come here, but he must leave me alone! He’s another nice present of your mother’s! She was frightened to death of him, and so she saddled him on me, preferring to see me murdered in her stead. Thanks for nothing! He’s got a knife now. Do make him desist!”
Berthe disarmed her brother, and calmed him with a look, whilst Auguste, who had turned very pale, continued to mumble angry words. Always knives being caught up! An injury is so soon done; and, with a madman, one could do nothing; justice would even refuse to avenge it! In short, it was not proper to make a bodyguard of such a brother, rendering a husband powerless, even in circumstances of the most legitimate indignation, going as far as forcing him to submit to his shame.
“You’ve no tact, sir,” declared Berthe, disdainfully. “A gentleman would not discuss such matters in a kitchen.”
And she withdrew to her room, slamming the doors behind her. Rachel had returned to the roaster, as though no longer hearing the quarrel between her master and mistress.
“Do understand, my dear,” said Auguste to Berthe, whom he had rejoined in the bed-room, “it was not in reference to you that I spoke, it was for that girl who robs us. Those twenty sous ought certainly to be found.”