Bridou himself, this time, sincerely shared the bewilderment of his friend, and the bailiff broke the silence by saying to Jacques:
"Humph, humph, old fellow, this is another affair to selling your fir-trees, I think."
Marie expected an explosion of wrath from her passionate husband. There was no such thing.
Jacques remained silent, immovable, and absorbed for a long time. His broad face was more florid than usual. He drank, one after another, two great glasses of wine, leaned his elbows on the table, with his chin in the palm of his hand, drumming convulsively on his fat cheek with his contracted fingers. Fixing on his wife's face his two little gray eyes, which glittered under his frowning eyebrows with a sinister light, he said, with apparent calmness:
"You say then, madame, that all the silver—"
"Monsieur—"
"Come, speak out, you see that I am calm."
Frederick rose instinctively and stood by his mother as if to protect her, so much did his father's composure frighten him.
"My child, sit down," said Marie, in a sweet, gentle voice.
Frederick returned to his place at the table and sat down. This unexpected movement on the part of Frederick had been observed by M. Bastien, who contented himself with questioning his wife, without changing his attitude, and continuing to drum with the ends of his fat fingers upon his left cheek.