However, the Quenus’ establishment still remained under a cloud. Florent sometimes ventured to show himself, and shook hands with his brother, while Lisa observed a frigid silence. He even dined with them sometimes on Sundays, at long intervals, and Quenu then made great efforts at gaiety, but could not succeed in imparting any cheerfulness to the meal. He ate badly, and ended by feeling altogether put out. One evening, after one of these icy family gatherings, he said to his wife with tears in his eyes:
“What can be the matter with me? Is it true that I’m not ill? Don’t you really see anything wrong in my appearance? I feel just as though I’d got a heavy weight somewhere inside me. And I’m so sad and depressed, too, without in the least knowing why. What can it be, do you think?”
“Oh, a little attack of indigestion, I dare say,” replied Lisa.
“No, no; it’s been going on too long for that; I feel quite crushed down. Yet the business is going on all right; I’ve no great worries, and I am leading just the same steady life as ever. But you, too, my dear, don’t look well; you seem melancholy. If there isn’t a change for the better soon, I shall send for the doctor.”
Lisa looked at him with a grave expression.
“There’s no need of a doctor,” she said, “things will soon be all right again. There’s something unhealthy in the atmosphere just now. All the neighbourhood is unwell.” Then, as if yielding to an impulse of anxious affection, she added: “Don’t worry yourself, my dear. I can’t have you falling ill; that would be the crowning blow.”
As a rule she sent him back to the kitchen, knowing that the noise of the choppers, the tuneful simmering of the fat, and the bubbling of the pans had a cheering effect upon him. In this way, too, she kept him at a distance from the indiscreet chatter of Mademoiselle Saget, who now spent whole mornings in the shop. The old maid seemed bent on arousing Lisa’s alarm, and thus driving her to some extreme step. She began by trying to obtain her confidence.
“What a lot of mischievous folks there are about!” she exclaimed; “folks who would be much better employed in minding their own business. If you only knew, my dear Madame Quenu—but no, really, I should never dare to repeat such things to you.”
And, as Madame Quenu replied that she was quite indifferent to gossip, and that it had no effect upon her, the old maid whispered into her ear across the counter: “Well, people say, you know, that Monsieur Florent isn’t your cousin at all.”
Then she gradually allowed Lisa to see that she knew the whole story; by way of proving that she had her quite at her mercy. When Lisa confessed the truth, equally as a matter of diplomacy, in order that she might have the assistance of some one who would keep her well posted in all the gossip of the neighbourhood, the old maid swore that for her own part she would be as mute as a fish, and deny the truth of the reports about Florent, even if she were to be led to the stake for it. And afterwards this drama brought her intense enjoyment; every morning she came to the shop with some fresh piece of disturbing news.