It was the very thing his mother always dreaded. She signalled to Monsieur Josserand to take Madame Juzeur away. Then she freed herself from Trublot, who understood, and disappeared; but he probably made a mistake, for he went off in the direction of the kitchen, close upon Adèle’s heels. Bachelard and Gueulin, without troubling themselves about the maniac, as they called him, chuckled in a corner, whilst playfully slapping one another.
“He was so peculiar, I felt there would be something this evening,” murmured Madame Josserand, uneasily. “Berthe, come quick!”
But Berthe was showing the twenty-franc piece to Hortense. Saturnin had caught up a knife. He repeated:
“Damnation! I won’t have it! I’ll rip their stomachs open!”
“Berthe!” called her mother in despair.
And, when the young girl hastened to the spot, she only just had time to seize him by the hand and prevent him from entering the drawing-room. She shook him angrily, whilst he tried to explain, with his madman’s logic.
“Let me be, I must settle them. I tell you it’s best. I’ve had enough of their dirty ways. They’ll sell the whole lot of us.”
“Oh! this is too much!” eried Berthe. “What is the matter with you? what are you talking about?”
He looked at her in a bewildered way, trembling with a gloomy rage, and stuttered:
“They’re going to marry you again. Never, you hear! I won’t have you hurt.”