“Yet, your papa gives her plenty of sugar!” said Lisa, with a sensual laugh.
“Oh! yes!” murmured Angèle, laughing also.
“What does your papa do to her? Come, show me.”
Then the child caught the maid round the neck, pressed her in her bare arms, and kissed her violently on the mouth, saying as she did so:
“See! like this. See! like this.”
Midnight struck. Campardon and Gasparine were moaning in their over-narrow bed, whilst Rose, stretching herself out in the middle of hers, and extending her limbs, was reading Dickens, with tears of emotion. A profound silence followed; the chaste night cast its shadow over the respectability of the family.
On going up to his room, Octave found that the Pichons had company. Jules called him in, and persisted on his taking a glass of something. Monsieur and Madame Vuillaume were there, having made it up with the young people, on the occasion of Marie’s churching, she having been confined in September. They had even agreed to come to dinner one Tuesday, to celebrate the young woman’s recovery, which only fully dated from the day before. Anxious to pacify her mother, whom the sight of the child, another girl, annoyed, she had sent it out to nurse, not far from Paris. Lilitte was sleeping on the table, overcome by a glass of pure wine, which her parents had forced her to drink to her little sister’s health.
“Well! two may still be put up with!” said Madame Vuillaume, after clinking glasses with Octave. “Only, don’t do it again, son-in-law.”
The others all laughed. But the old woman remained perfectly grave.
“There is nothing laughable in that,” she continued. “We accept this child, but I swear to you that if another were to come——”