“That is a very lamentable consequence. At all events, Marie, you will have the comfort of reflecting that a Bishop is at the bottom of your misfortunes.”
M. Deshoulières sat smiling and unimpressed; Veuve Angelin was almost crying over the mortifications she foresaw to be in store for her, when a step sounded on the stairs. She went out and came running in again, radiant.
“From the Evêché,” she said, giving him a note.
M. Deshoulières, who was human, could not himself resist a little twinkle of satisfaction as he read. The Abbé, after making his compliments to M. Deshoulières, begged him to call at the Evêché as soon as his other engagements would admit. The note was pointedly civil.
“Poor man!” thought the doctor, folding it up with a smile. “Such a concession ought to serve for penance.”
“Monsieur is sent for?” asked Veuve Angelin, eagerly.
“I am going to assist M. Pinot,” answered the doctor, gravely. “Don’t you know, Marie, that a great man has generally a second in command? After this, if Madame Victoire usurps the honours of the market, you may decidedly claim the privilege of following close behind.”
Veuve Angelin, who could not understand a joke, was left not altogether at ease. “If monsieur loses his standing in the place, I shall quit,” she said to herself. “To have that woman setting herself before us would be unbearable. To assist M. Pinot! The Bishop would have more proper feeling than to allow such a thing to be named. M. Pinot!”
M. Deshoulières meanwhile reached the iron gates, passed under the trees, from which brown leaves were dropping, and rang the bell of the Evêché. M. Jean himself opened the door, the Abbé was not to be seen. The doctor went upstairs into a large lofty apartment, wainscoted with dark wood. Logs were burning in an open fireplace; in a great cushioned chair drawn close to it, sat an old kindly-faced man, with a little black skull-cap covering his white locks, and his withered hands stretched out on the arms of his chair.
“So you are come this time, Monsieur Deshoulières,” he said, with a little nod of welcome.