'Certainly,' she replied, 'I shall be delighted; but I shall have to change my place.'
'Oh! there will be no difficulty about that,' said Mouret, who was quite charmed. 'You had better take your son's seat, and perhaps Monsieur l'Abbé will be good enough to sit next to my wife. Madame can sit next to me. There! that will do capitally.'
The priest, who had at first been opposite to Marthe on the other side of the table, was thus placed next to her. They sat quite apart by themselves, the two players having drawn their chairs close together to engage in their struggle. Octave and Serge had just gone up to their room. Désirée was sleeping with her head on the table after her usual custom. When ten o'clock struck, Mouret, who had lost the first game, did not feel inclined to go to bed but asked for his revenge. Madame Faujas consulted her son with a glance, and then in her tranquil fashion began to shuffle the cards. The Abbé had merely exchanged a few words with Marthe. On this the first evening that he spent in the dining-room he only spoke of commonplace topics; the household, the price of victuals at Plassans, and the anxieties which children caused. Marthe replied with a show of interest, looking up every now and then with her bright glance, and importing into the conversation some of her own sedate good sense.
It was nearly eleven o'clock when Mouret threw down the cards with some slight irritation.
'I have lost again!' he said. 'I haven't had a single good card all the evening. Perhaps I shall have better luck to-morrow. We shall see you again, I hope, madame?'
And when Abbé Faujas began to protest that they could not think of abusing the Mourets' kindness by disturbing them in this way every evening, he continued:
'But you are not disturbing us at all, you are giving us pleasure. Besides, I have been defeated, and I'm sure that madame can't refuse me another game.'
When the priest and his mother had accepted the invitation and had gone upstairs again, Mouret showed some ill-temper and began to excuse himself for having lost. He seemed quite annoyed about it.
'The old woman isn't as good a player as I am, I'm sure,' he said to his wife; 'but she has got such eyes! I could really almost fancy she was cheating, upon my word I could! Well! we shall see what happens to-morrow.'