The newcomer to whom Madame Bastien had alluded, and who was now advancing through the grove, was about forty years of age, a small, delicate-looking man, very carelessly dressed. He was singularly ugly, too, but his ugliness was of the clever, good-humoured type. His name was Dufour; he practised medicine at Pont Brillant, and, by dint of skill and unremitting attention, he had cured Frederick of a serious illness the year before.
"How do you do, my dear Madame Bastien?" he said, cheerfully, as he approached the pair. "How do you do, my boy?" he added, pressing Frederick's hand cordially.
"Ah, doctor, you came just in time to get scolded," exclaimed Madame Bastien, with affectionate gaiety.
"Scolded?"
"Certainly. Isn't it more than a fortnight since you came to see us?"
"Fie! fie!" cried M. Dufour, "you must be egotistical to demand a doctor's visits with health as flourishing as yours."
"Fie!" retorted Madame Bastien, no less gaily, "and what right have you, pray, to so disdain the gratitude of those you have saved as to deprive them of the pleasure of saying to him often, very often,'Thank you, my preserver, thank you'?"
"Yes, my mother is right, M. Dufour," added Frederick. "You think because you have restored me to life that all is over between us. How ungrateful you are!"
"If mother and son have both declared war upon me, there is nothing left for me but to beat a retreat," exclaimed the doctor, drawing back a step or two.
"Oh, well, we will not take an unfair advantage; but only upon one condition, doctor. That is that you will dine with us."