“It is too far off, probably, for Raoul to benefit,” remarked his grandfather, gazing at him. “If he could have seen him now! Monsieur de Beaudrillart should have taken him there on a visit.”
“It might have been only another to spoil him,” she said, with a laugh, capturing her son as he was thumping upon the table with both lists.
“Pooh, you are a fidget! He gets no spoiling here. I dare say those women at Poissy don’t know how a boy should be treated. Let him hammer. The table is solid. You lose your authority by always scolding. Come here, Raoul, and tell me how the pony goes. And Jean? Does he do what you tell him?”
Driving back that afternoon, Nathalie reflected, as she reflected often, on the difficulties which lay about the bringing up of her little son. Indulged on all sides, with the strong family will quite ready to develop itself, it seemed as if his path was to be strewn with rose-leaves. She had absolutely no one to help her, except Jacques Charpentier, Jean’s father, an honest, sensible man, devoted to the family, and no less so to Mme. Léon. When Raoul was with him, his mother was at ease. With his grandmother and aunts, she was sure that they often indulged the boy out of opposition to her. His father hated disturbance of any sort, and found it easier to laugh than to rebuke. All the training was left to her. Her own father, usually sensible, here was weak, and, in fact, it was who should gain his love by yielding. Happily, as yet, Raoul adored his mother, and as she thought of this she blamed herself for her misgivings.
She told herself, with a sigh, that she was a very happy woman. And afterwards she stared back at that sigh with amazement at her ignorant discontent.
Léon received the news of M. de Cadanet’s death in silence, which was unusual. He answered Claire’s question whether he would have gone to the funeral briefly in the negative, and was leaving the room, when his mother detained him to say in a low voice:
“It will make no difference to you!”
“No. But it might have.”
“Who will have his money?”
“I imagine he will leave all he can to one Monsieur Charles Lemaire, his wife’s nephew.”