“Oh, of course!” But though he spoke confidently, it was remarkable how frequently he was obliged during the next mornings to go off to some distant point. It was on one of these mornings that M. Bourget arrived.
The second breakfast was over, and he sturdily refused the offers of hospitality which Mme. de Beaudrillart pressed upon him with ceremonious care.
“No, no, madame,” he said. “I’m here on business, and, with your leave, I’ll go and see about it at once.”
“But, unfortunately, monsieur, my son is not here to conduct you.”
M. Bourget stared, the awe of his first visit having considerably lessened.
“Much obliged, madame, but I require no conducting. Fauvel and I have done a good deal of work together before now, and I don’t think he’ll try to palm off anything discreditable upon me. I mean to see, though, and perhaps one of the young ladies would like to come, too. Mademoiselle Félicie looks as if she wanted fresh air, poor thing! I dare say it’s a trial to her to be so hard of hearing.”
“Sometimes it’s more a trial to hear at all, Monsieur Bourget,” said Claire, gazing at the ceiling. She burst out when they were alone: “Heavens! are we to have that odious man inflicted upon us whenever he chooses to think that Poissy requires his superintendence? And Léon has no doubt gone away on purpose? If he presents us with a father-in-law in the shape of a builder—or a mason? Which was it?”—“Oh, a builder. Fauvel is the mason.”
”—He might at least share the labours of entertaining him.”
“One could endure the builder,” said Félicie, creeping with her small steps towards the window, “if he were not such a terrible freethinker. Abbé Nisard says you can never be certain what he will not say.”
“If he says anything to you it will be shouted,” laughed Claire. “To have brought that great voice on your head is serious.”