Evidently Jacques was making a superhuman effort to restrain the violence of his feelings. He was obliged to rise from the table and go to the window, which he opened, in spite of the rigour of the weather, to cool his burning forehead, for wicked designs were fermenting in his brain, and he made every effort to conceal them. When he took his place at the table again, he threw on Marie a strange and sinister look, and said to her, with an accent of cruel satisfaction:
"If you knew how it is with me, since you have sold my silver, you would know that you have done me a real service."
Although the ambiguity of these words caused her some disquietude, and she was alarmed at the incomprehensible calmness of her husband, Marie felt a momentary relief, for she had feared that M. Bastien, yielding to the natural brutality of his character, might so far forget himself as to come to injury and threats in the presence of her son, who would interpose between his mother and father.
Without addressing another word to his wife, Jacques drank another glass of wine and said to his companion:
"Come, old fellow, we are going to eat cold dough, on plates of beaten iron; it is pot luck, as you say."
"Jacques," said the bailiff, more and more frightened at the calmness of Bastien, "I assure you I am not at all hungry."
"I—I am ravenous," said Jacques, with a satirical laugh; "it is very easily accounted for; joy always increases my appetite, so, at the present moment, I am as hungry as a vulture."
"Joy, joy," repeated the bailiff; "you do not look at all joyous."
And Bridou added, addressing Marie, as if to reassure her, for, notwithstanding the hardness of his heart, he was almost moved to compassion:
"It is all the same, madame, our brave Jacques now and then opens his eyes and grits his teeth, but at the bottom, he is—"