'The master didn't make himself pleasant enough for them to regret him,' replied Rose. 'There was nothing too bad for him to say against them.'
'Well, he wasn't far wrong there,' said Macquart. 'The Rougons are wretched skinflints. Just think that they refused to buy that cornfield over yonder, a magnificent speculation which I undertook to manage. Félicité would pull a queer face if she saw François come back!'
He began to snigger again, and took a turn round the table. Then, with an expression of determination, he lighted his pipe.
'We mustn't forget the time, my boy,' he said to Alexandre, with another wink. 'I will go back with you; Marthe seems quiet now. Rose will get the table laid by the time I return. You must be hungry, Rose, eh? As you are obliged to stay the night here, you shall have a mouthful with me.'
He went off with the warder, and fully half an hour elapsed. Rose, who began to tire of being alone, at last opened the door and went out to the terrace, where she stood watching the deserted road in the clear night air. As she was going back into the house, she fancied she could see two dark shadows in the middle of a path behind a hedge.
'It looks just like the uncle,' thought she; 'he seems to be talking to a priest.'
A few minutes later Macquart returned. That blessed Alexandre, said he, had been chattering to him interminably.
'Wasn't it you who were over there just now with a priest?' asked Rose.
'I, with a priest!' he cried. 'Why, you must have been dreaming; there isn't a priest in the neighbourhood.'
He rolled his little glistening eyes. Then, as if rather uneasy about the lie he had told, he added: