Delphin ventured into the room, excusing himself as he made his greetings. He was wearing a blue blouse and heavy field-boots. He had no tie round his neck, and his face was brown from exposure to the hot sun.
"Well," continued Delhomme, who had a high opinion of the lad, "will you be setting off for Chartres one of these days?"
Delphin opened his eyes widely, and then energetically exclaimed:
"Oh! Curse it all! No, I should be suffocated in the place."
The father cast a side-long glance at his son, and then Delphin, coming to the rescue of his friend, continued:
"It's all very well for Nénesse to go there, as he looks so well when he's dressed up, and can play the cornet."
Delhomme smiled, for he was very proud of his son's skill with the cornet. Fanny now returned with a handful of two-franc pieces. She slowly counted out ten of them into Nénesse's palm. All the coins were quite white from having been kept beneath a heap of corn. She never trusted her money to her wardrobe, but hid it away in small sums in odd corners all over the house, underneath the corn, or the coals, or the sand; the consequence being that when she paid the coins away they were sometimes one colour, and sometimes another, white, black, or yellow.
"It will do, all the same," said Nénesse, by way of thanks. "Now, Delphin, are you coming?"
Then the two young fellows went off together, and their merry laughter could be heard dying away in the distance.
Jean now emptied his glass, seeing that old Fouan, who had kept aloof during the whole of the last scene, had left the window to go out into the yard. Then he said good-bye to the Delhommes, and went out in his turn, finding the old man standing alone in the black night.