'There! that's much nicer, isn't it, than quarrelling?' said Pauline. 'I will be off, now that you no longer need me to make peace between you.'
She sprang to the door as she spoke, and quickly closed it upon that chamber of love, with its perfume of heliotrope, which now thrilled her with soft emotion, as though it were an accomplice perfume which would complete her task of reconciliation.
When she got downstairs to the kitchen, Pauline began to sing as she stirred her stew. Then she threw a bundle of wood on the fire, arranged the turnspit, and began to watch the duck roast with a critical eye. It amused her to have to play the servant's part. She had tied a big white apron round her, and felt quite pleased at the thought of waiting upon them all and undertaking the most humble duties, so that she might be able to tell them that they were that day indebted to her for their gaiety and health. Now that, thanks to her, they were smiling and happy, she wanted to serve them a festive repast of very good things, of which they would partake plentifully while growing bright and mirthful round the table.
She thought, however, of her uncle and the child again, and hastily ran out on to the terrace, where she was greatly astonished to find her cousin seated by the side of his little son.
'What!' she exclaimed, 'have you come down already?'
He merely nodded his head in answer. He seemed to have fallen back into his former weary indifference; his shoulders were bent, and his hands were lying listlessly in front of him. Then Pauline said to him with an expression of uneasy anxiety:
'I hope you didn't begin again as soon as my back was turned?'
'No, no!' he at last made up his mind to reply. 'She will be down as soon as she has put on her dress. We have quite forgiven each other and made it up. But how long will it last? To-morrow there will be something else; every day, every hour! You can't change people, and you can't prevent things happening.'
Pauline became very grave, and her saddened eyes sought the ground. Lazare was right. She could clearly foresee a long series of days like this in store for them, the same incessant quarrels, which she would have to smooth away. And she was no longer quite sure that she was altogether cured herself, and might not again give way to her old outbursts of jealousy. Ah! were these daily troubles never to have an end? But she had already raised her eyes again; she remembered how many times she had won the victory over herself; and as for those other two, she would see whether they would not grow tired of quarrelling before she did of reconciling them. This thought brightened her, and she laughingly repeated it to Lazare. What would be left for her to do, if the house became perfectly happy? She would fall a victim to ennui herself, if she hadn't some little worries to smooth away.