Mouret was almost choking. He rose and left the dining-room without paying any attention to Rose, who cried out to him that the coffee would be ready directly. Marthe, now left alone in the room, quietly finished her pear.
Just as the cook was bringing the coffee, Madame Faujas came downstairs.
'Go in,' Rose said to her; 'you will be company for madame, and you can have the master's coffee, for he has just rushed off like a madman.'
The old lady sat down in Mouret's place.
'I thought you did not take coffee,' she remarked as she put some sugar into her cup.
'No, indeed, she didn't do so when the master kept the purse,' interposed Rose. 'But madame would be very silly now to deny herself what she likes.'
They talked for a good hour together, and Marthe ended by relating all her troubles to Madame Faujas, telling her how her husband had just inflicted a most painful scene upon her on account of her daughter, whom he had removed to her nurse's in a sudden pet. She defended herself, and told Madame Faujas that she was really very fond of the girl, and should go to fetch her back before long.
'Well, she was rather noisy,' Madame Faujas remarked. 'I have often pitied you. My son was thinking about giving up going into the garden to read his breviary. She almost distracted him with the noise she made.'
From that day forward Marthe and Mouret took their meals in silence. The autumn was very damp, and the dining-room looked intensely melancholy with only two covers laid, one at each end of the big table. The corners were dark, and a chill seemed to fall from the ceiling. As Rose would say, it looked as though a funeral were going on.
'Well, indeed,' she often exclaimed, as she brought the plates into the room, 'you couldn't make much less noise, sir, however you tried! There isn't much danger of your wearing the skin of your tongue off! Do try to be a little livelier, sir! You look as though you were following a corpse to the grave!—You will end by making madame quite ill. It is bad for the health to eat without speaking.'