“There!” He shot the word at the waiter. “If you call this stuff coffee, bring another cup. Now I suppose you’re satisfied,” he continued to Leroux.
“And I shall pay for it,” ejaculated the lawyer to himself. “Poissy, Poissy, Poissy, he is only waiting to be set off. Confound Poissy!” Aloud he said, “You were not at the meeting about the crèche, Monsieur Bourget.”
“Crèche? Absurdity! Why can’t the women mind their own babies?” grumbled the ex-builder. “No, monsieur. If I had been in the town and had attended, it would only have been for the purpose of seeing my fellow-townsmen make fools of themselves. As it was, I went early to Poissy.”
“Now it comes!” Leroux groaned, inwardly. “And what was going on at Poissy?”
“What should go on!” demanded M. Bourget, jealously. “What should go on?”
“Peste! how should I know? I suppose things happen there, as in other places?”
“No foolishness about crèches, at all events.”
His retort pleased him so much that he chuckled, and Leroux, not to be behindhand in civility, chuckled in company. But M. Bourget was too anxious to know whether anything had leaked out to be put off even by his own jests. He flung an elaborate veil of carelessness over his next question, crossing his legs and leaning back in his chair.
“You know most of the talk of the place, Leroux, and I have often thought of asking you—merely out of curiosity, you will understand—what is said of my son-in-law, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, in Tours? People don’t like to repeat anything to me, and naturally; but there must be opinions expressed, and it would amuse me to hear them.”
“Something is up,” reflected the little lawyer, rapidly. “He is uneasy. Has our fine son-in-law, perhaps, broken out again? What is said, Monsieur Bourget? Well, not so much now.”