“So it looks!” M. Raindal approved shyly.
“Well, it may be so ...” Thérèse replied.... “Guess whom I met? Little Boerzell. You remember him, father? The would-be fiancé at the Saulvard party.... A very strange young man; he has a whole series of theories and systems which amused me.... I am still laughing now.... Well, I asked him to visit us ... and he will probably come next Sunday!”
“You did quite right, dear!” M. Raindal asserted, as much in order to conciliate Thérèse as because of a mania he had to praise his inferiors.... “M. Boerzell is a young man with a rare future.... Everybody at the Académie holds him in high esteem.... It was only yesterday that someone was telling me....”
“What about you, uncle?” Thérèse interrupted. “It is my turn to ask you questions! Can you tell me what you are doing here, on a week day, a Wednesday, and at the sacred hour of the apéritif!”
“To begin with,” the younger M. Raindal objected ... “it is not more than half past five.... The apéritif lasts normally until half past seven.... I have therefore, mademoiselle, two good solid hours, if you please.... Now, you want to know why I am here. Hah, nephew, this rouses your curiosity! Well, I came to ask your father to take me to Mme. Chambannes.”
Thérèse bit her lips to repress a smile.
“Yes,” Uncle Cyprien continued, rubbing his close-cropped hair. “It was an idea that occurred to me ... a matter of curiosity!...”
“And I was telling your uncle,” M. Raindal put in rapidly, and without looking at Thérèse, “that I was quite ready to take him there, whenever he wished....”
“Why not to-morrow, Thursday?” Uncle Cyprien inquired.
M. Raindal hid under a short laugh a sigh that came to his lips.