“Well, we are forgetting our work!” Zozé exclaimed suddenly.
Before M. Raindal had time to word a reply, the curtain was once more drawn aside. A bald, corpulent ecclesiastic, who seemed to be in his fifties and wore a broad smile under his broad spectacles, advanced slowly into the room.
“Ah! it is you, my dear abbé!” Zozé exclaimed in a tone which showed so much sincere surprise that it was hard to guess whether the pries visit had been planned beforehand or brought about by mere hazard.
She introduced the men to each other:
“M. bbé Touronde, director of the Villedouillet orphanage, our neighbor in the country and one of our best friends ... M. Raindal....”
The master bowed with the ceremonious affectation he always showed in order to dissimulate his aversion towards those of the cloth.
Respectfully, the abbé asked, with a slight Southern accent:
“M. Raindal, the author of the Life of Cleopatra?”
“Quite so!” Zozé confirmed.
The abbé Touronde congratulated him profusely. He was not acquainted with the book itself, but had read enough accounts of it in the newspapers, to speak of it freely. He praised the master upon some particular chapters. M. Raindal thanked him with modest gestures of his hand as if he were fending off the compliments.