'What can be wrong?' she would sometimes ask herself aloud. 'We love each other, and yet we are not happy. Our affection for each other only seems to make us wretched.'
It was a problem she was constantly trying to solve. Perhaps all the trouble arose from the fact that her own character and that of her cousin did not harmonize. But, though she would willingly have adapted herself, have abdicated all personal will, she found it impossible to do so, for her sense of reason prevented her. Her patience often gave way, and there were days of sulking. She would have liked to be merry and drown all petty wretchedness in gaiety, but she could no longer do so; she, in her turn, was growing moody and despondent.
'It's very nice and pleasant this!' Véronique began to repeat from morning till night. 'There are only three of you now, and you'll end by eating each other up! Madame used to have her bad days, but, at any rate, while she was alive, you managed to keep off banging things at each other's heads.'
Chanteau himself also began to suffer from the influence of this slow and, to him, inexplicable disintegration of the family affections. Whenever he now had an attack of the gout, he bellowed, as the servant said, more loudly than before, and his caprices and violence tormented everyone in the place. The whole house was becoming a hell once more.
At last Pauline, in the last throes of her jealousy, began to ask herself if she was to impose her own ideas of happiness on Lazare. Certainly before everything else it was his happiness that she desired, even at the cost of grief to herself. Why, then, should she go on keeping him in this seclusion, in a solitude which seemed to make him suffer? He must, and doubtless he did, still love her, and he would come back to her when he was better able to appreciate her after comparison with that other girl. But, any way, she ought to let him make his own choice. It was only just, and the idea of justice remained paramount within her.
Every three months Pauline repaired to Caen to receive the dividends. She started in the morning and returned in the evening, after attending to a list of purchases and errands which she compiled during the previous quarter. On her visit to Caen in June that year, however, the family vainly awaited her return, putting off dinner till nine o'clock. Chanteau, who had become very uneasy, sent Lazare off along the road, fearing that some accident had occurred; whereas Véronique, with an air of perfect tranquillity, said that it was foolish of them to distress themselves, for Mademoiselle Pauline, finding herself behindhand, and being anxious to complete her purchases, had doubtless determined to stay at Caen all night. Nevertheless, they spent a very uneasy time at Bonneville, and next morning, as soon as breakfast was over, their anxiety returned. About noon, when Chanteau could scarcely keep himself any longer in his chair, and Lazare had just determined to set off to Arromanches, Véronique, who had been standing on the road, suddenly rushed into the room exclaiming:
'Here she is! Mademoiselle is coming!'
Chanteau insisted upon having his chair wheeled on to the terrace, and the father and son waited there together, while Véronique gave them particulars of what she had seen.
'It was Malivoire's coach. I could tell it was Mademoiselle Pauline by her crape ribbons. But what I couldn't understand was that there seemed to be somebody with her. What can that broken-winded old hack be doing, I wonder?'