Four of us were left. There was a new unpleasant pause. No sign or look passed between Suzanne and de Fouquier. I was moved by the display of raging hate in this peaceful family, and bewildered to know what it might all mean. The Countess was sniffing tearfully, mopping her eyes with a tiny cambric handkerchief.
"No need for that," cried Suzanne sharply. "You have not yet apologized to Emile."
He broke his discreet silence at last, suavely, full of forgiveness. "No, my dear cousin, pray do not talk to your mother like that. 'Tis I who am sorry. It is not Madame's own fault; I have always felt that Mademoiselle Gros was putting false ideas into her mind, poisoning her outlook, playing treacherously on her maternal fears, slandering each one of us. Now she is going, and we shall breathe a purer atmosphere."
Madame continued to sniffle.
"Don't-know-what-to-believe."
Neither Suzanne nor Monsieur de Fouquier gave her any enlightenment, though she looked furtively up first at one and then the other. Then with an appealing "Help me" glance she turned in my direction. So, instantly, did the others. "Remember, dear Mademoiselle, that we're friends," was the burden of one look: "Beware, young lady, or we'll be enemies" of the other.
"I think it must all be an unfortunate misunderstanding, Madame," I said. "Personally, I noticed nothing." (Judicial, judicious.)
Here François entered; bald-headed, Punch-faced, beaky-eyed. He looked completely incognizant of the storm that had been raging: exactly as though he had been listening outside the whole time. The united-front-before-servants which we hastened to display would have failed to deceive the dullard which François certainly was not.
Both Suzanne and her mother began eye-signalling "See you after" to me, the more emphatically when each perceived the other. Suzanne first, I decided: she was my friend, and with her I should get nearer the truth of it all. But as we rose from the table, the Countess laid her hand affectionately on my shoulder, and led me, unavoidably, to her boudoir.