The priest could not restrain a smile, but he again pointed out the stain to Mouret.
'Ah! I can see it quite plainly now,' said the latter. 'Well, I'll send the workmen up to-morrow.'
Then he at last left the room, and before he had reached the end of the landing, the door was noiselessly closed behind him. The silence of the staircase irritated him extremely, and as he went down, he muttered:
'The confounded fellow! He gets everything out of one without asking a single question!'
[V]
The next morning old Madame Rougon, Marthe's mother,[4] came to pay a visit to the Mourets. It was quite an event, for there was a coolness between Mouret and his wife's relations which had increased since the election of the Marquis de Lagrifoul, whose success the Rougons attributed to Mouret's influence in the rural districts. Marthe used to go alone when she went to see her parents. Her mother, 'that black Félicité,' as she was called, had retained at sixty-six years of age all the slimness and vivacity of a girl. She always wore silk dresses, covered with flounces, and was particularly partial to yellows and browns.
When she arrived, only Marthe and Mouret were in the dining-room.
'Hallo!' cried the latter in great surprise, as he saw her coming, 'here's your mother! I wonder what she wants! She was here less than a month ago. She's scheming after something or other, I know.'