"Then it's the President who displeases you down there," remarked Roubaud.
Séverine, who had been answering slowly and in an even tone, became impatient again.
"He! What an idea!" she exclaimed.
And she continued in short, nervous phrases. They barely caught sight of him. He had reserved to himself a pavilion in the park, having a door opening on a deserted lane. He went out and came in without anybody knowing anything about his movements. His sister never even knew positively on what day he arrived. He took a vehicle at Barentin, and drove over by night to Doinville, where he remained for days together in his pavilion, ignored by everyone. Ah! it was not he who troubled them down there.
"I only mention it," said Roubaud, "because you have told me, over and over again, that in your childhood, he frightened you out of your senses."
"Oh! frightened me out of my senses!" she replied. "You exaggerate, as usual. It is a fact that he rarely laughed. He stared at you so with his great eyes, that he made you hang your head at once. I have seen persons confused, to the point of being unable to say a word to him, so deeply were they impressed by his great reputation for severity and wisdom. But as for me, I was never scolded by him. I always felt he had a weakness for me."
Once more her speech became slow, and her eyes were lost in space.
"I remember," she resumed, "when I was a little girl, and happened to be having a game with playmates on the paths, that if he chanced to appear, everyone ran into hiding, even his daughter Berthe, who was always trembling with fear lest she should be caught doing something wrong. For my part, I calmly awaited him. He came along, and seeing me there, smiling and looking up, gave me a pat on the cheek. Later on, at sixteen, whenever Berthe wished to obtain some favour from him, she always entrusted me with the mission of asking it. I spoke. I never looked down, and I felt his eyes penetrating me. But I did not care a fig, I was so sure he would grant whatever I wanted. Ah! yes; I remember it all. There is not a piece of brushwood in the park, not a corridor, nor a room in the château that I cannot see, when I close my eyes."
She ceased speaking, and lowered her lids. The thrill of incidents of former days seemed to pass over her warm, puffy face. She remained thus for a few moments, with a slight beating of the lips, something like a nervous twitch, that drew down the corner of her mouth as if she were in pain.
"He has certainly been very good to you," said Roubaud, who had just lit his pipe. "Not only did he bring you up like a young lady, but he very shrewdly invested the little money you had, and increased it when we were married, without counting what he is going to leave you. He said in my presence that he had mentioned you in his will."