“So it seems. By-the-way, if Léon had been at home, perhaps he would have run up for the funeral.”
“It appears as if it would require a great deal to drag Léon to Paris,” Nathalie remarked, smiling.
“Perhaps, my dear, he has never informed you of the reasons he has to avoid it.”
Her sister-in-law coloured.
“No,” she said, “he never speaks of his life there.”
“And such a good wife asks no questions! Well, I have often wished to go there myself.”
“Oh, you are quite extraordinary, Claire,” said Félicie, shuddering. “When Paris is such a wicked place!”
“I believe I should like to see a little of the wickedness and judge for myself,” Claire announced, as she followed her mother out of the room.
When Nathalie and her boy reached M. Bourget’s house, he had already been more than once to the door to see if they were coming, although he would not have acknowledged it for worlds. He professed great surprise at their appearing, for, by an established fiction, they were never expected on the days when they arrived, and by another fiction it was supposed to be an extraordinary fact that Raoul should have been allowed to drive in with his mother.
M. Bourget would stand, thumbs in button-holes, and look him up and down with a pride which cannot be described.