"Is he looking after the business?" he asked with an air of interest.
Monsieur Charles shrugged his shoulders, and assumed an aggrieved air.
"Ah, that's just what is troubling us so much. I saw a person from Chartres this morning. It's very sad! The house is done for! The supervision is so wretched that fights go on in the passages, and fellows actually walk away without paying."
Then he crossed his arms and drew a long breath to ease himself of a new worry which had been stifling him, by reason of its enormity, ever since the morning. "And would you believe it," he resumed, "the reprobate goes to the café, now? Going to a café, indeed, when there is one in his own house!"
"He must be daft, then!" fiercely exclaimed Hyacinthe, who had been listening.
They now relapsed into silence, for Madame Charles and Elodie were drawing near with Buteau. They were speaking of the dear departed, and the young girl remarked how sad it made her that she had not been able to kiss her poor mother.
"But it seems she died so suddenly," she added, with her innocent air, "and they were so busy in the shop——"
"Yes, making confectionery for some christening parties," hastily interrupted Madame Charles, with a side-long glance, full of meaning, at the others.
Not one of them smiled. They all preserved a gravely sympathetic air. The girl had bent her gaze upon a ring she was wearing, and she kissed it, with her eyes full of tears.
"This is all I have that belonged to her," she said. "Grandmother took it from her finger and brought it and put it on mine. She wore it for twenty years, and I shall keep it all my life."