Nathalie drew a long breath as she stood for an instant watching it. This was her home, her peace, her security. Her husband caught sight of her, and came towards her with his easy smile upon his face.
“Back already, chérie? A thousand welcomes! They say the vintage is splendid—better than it had been for years. No phyloxera, and magnificently ripened. Look how the light shoots through those bunches. Old Félix is delighted.”
Surely, her security.
Chapter Seventeen.
“I Love You!”
Léon’s mood changed like a weathercock on a gusty English day. Extreme wrath with Charles Lemaire alternated with the fancy that it was a foolish charge which no one in their senses would believe. Nathalie, by her sturdy faith, helped to keep him in this fools’ paradise; and in his indignation at the accusation that the money had not been repaid, he quite lost sight of what he had really done. He groaned with disgust at Lemaire’s falsity, and feeling himself a martyr to a false charge, looked at the matter from heights of virtuous probity.
His mother’s fears were in a measure quieted by the laughing explanation he gave of the envelope incident. There was no temptation to say anything but the truth, so that its probability impressed her, and only a latent uneasiness remained. M. de Cadanet had given no acknowledgment, and he was not the sort of man to worry on the subject. He did not want to press for it or to offend the old man. Mme. de Beaudrillart shook her head; but it was at the rashness, not its impossibility. Besides—and that there was a change in her was proved by this besides—if he had not felt secure he could not possibly have ventured himself on this action; nor would M. Rodoin have permitted it. She had a woman’s confidence in a lawyer’s far-sightedness.
M. Bourget remained sternly apart, making no sign. His daughter thought of him with trouble, but could not bring herself to face him again. His attitude cut her to the heart, for she felt as if, through her father’s distrust, she herself had done her husband wrong. As for changing his opinion, once it had gripped him, she knew she was powerless, and she remained undutifully pitiless, even when reflecting upon that changed desolate figure by the window, thinking only of him as one who had failed Léon at a time when he wanted support.