'If anyone had committed suicide at your mother's,' he growled, as he angrily buried his head in his pillow, 'you would know nothing about it!'
When he came home to dinner the next day, he called to Marthe as soon as he caught sight of her:
'I was sure of it! I knew you had never troubled yourself to use your eyes! It's just like you! Sitting the whole evening in a room and never having the faintest notion of what was being said or done around you! Why, the whole town is talking about it! The whole town, do you hear? I couldn't go anywhere without somebody speaking to me about——'
'About what, my dear?' asked Marthe, in astonishment.
'About the fine success of Abbé Faujas, forsooth! He was turned out of the green drawing-room!'
'Indeed he wasn't! I saw nothing of the kind.'
'Haven't I told you that you never see anything? Do you know what the Abbé did at Besançon? He either murdered a priest or committed forgery! They are not quite certain which it was. However, they seem to have given him a nice reception! He turned quite green. Well, it's all up with him now!'
Marthe bent her head and allowed her husband to revel in the priest's discomfiture. Mouret was delighted.
'I still stick to my first idea,' he said; 'your mother and he have got some underhand plot together. I hear that she showed him the greatest civility. It was she, wasn't it, who asked him to accompany you home? Why didn't you tell me so?'