'He is furious!' murmured Olympe. 'Well, so much the worse; we had better stay where we are now. If we go back upstairs, he will think we are afraid of him. I've had quite enough of this kind of thing, and you will see what I will say to him.'
She made Trouche seat himself on one of the chairs which Rose had brought out a short time previously, and when the Abbé returned he found them tranquilly settled there. He fastened the bolts of the little door, glanced quickly around to assure himself that the trees screened them from observation, and then came up close to the Trouches, saying in a muffled voice:
'You forget our agreement. You undertook to remain in your own rooms.'
'It was too hot up there,' Olympe replied. 'We are not committing any crime by coming down here to get a little fresh air.'
The priest was on the point of exploding, but his sister, still quite pale from the effort she had made in resisting him, added in a peculiar tone:
'Don't make a noise, now! There are some people over there, and you might do yourself harm.'
Then both the Trouches laughed slightly. The Abbé fixed his eyes upon them with a terrible expression, but without speaking.
'Sit down,' said Olympe. 'You want an explanation, don't you? Well, you shall have one. We are tired of imprisoning ourselves. You are living here in clover; the house seems to belong to you, and so does the garden. So much the better, indeed; we are delighted to see how well things appear to be going with you, but you mustn't treat us as dirt beneath your feet. You have never thought of bringing me up a single bunch of grapes; you have given us the most wretched of the rooms; you hide us away and are ashamed of us; you shut us up as though we had the plague. You must understand that it can't go on any longer!'
'I am not the master here,' replied Abbé Faujas. 'You must address yourselves to Monsieur Mouret if you want to strip his garden.'
The Trouches exchanged a fresh smile.