But the latter had at length caught sight of her sister hammering on the piano, and she slapped her and turned her out of the room, taking the same opportunity to cuff and drive away the little one with her saucepan. There was a most infernal uproar. The invalid aunt in the next room again started off yelling, thinking they were coming to beat her.
“Do you hear, my darling?” murmured Duveyrier, “these gentlemen have invited me to lunch.”
But she was not listening to him, she was trying the instrument with frightened tenderness. For a month past, she had been learning to play the piano. It was the secret dream of her whole life, a far-away ambition the realization of which could alone stamp her a woman of society. Having satisfied herself that there was nothing broken, she was about to prevent her lover from going, simply to annoy him, when Madame Bocquet once more bobbed her head in at the door, again hiding her skirt.
“Your music-master,” said she.
At this Clarisse changed her mind, and called to Duveyrier:
“That’s it, be off! I’ll lunch with Théodore. We don’t want you.”
After kissing her on the hair, he discreetly withdrew, leaving her with Théodore. In the ante-room, the big rascal of a brother asked him in his jocular way for a franc for tobacco. Then, as they wont down-stairs, Bachelard expressed surprise at his conversion to the charms of the piano, and he swore he had never disliked it; he talked of the ideal, saying how much Clarisse’s simple scales stirred his soul, yielding to his continual mania for having a bright side to his coarse masculine appetites.
Down below, Trublot had given the driver a cigar, and was listening to his history with the liveliest interest. The uncle insisted on lunching at Foyot’s; it was the proper time, and they could talk better whilst eating. Then, when the cab had managed to start off again, he told everything to Duveyrier, who became very grave.
Auguste’s uneasiness seemed to have increased at Clarisse’s, where he had not opened his mouth; and now, worn out by this interminable drive, his head entirely a prey to a violent aching, he abandoned himself.
When the counselor questioned him as to what he intended doing, he opened his eyes, and remained a moment filled with anguish; then he repeated his former phrase: