"You are not fond of her, as everyone knows; so she will never ask you for anything, never fear; but I am fond of my aunt, if you have no objection, and Julien adores her. Between them—between us three, if necessary—we will have everything paid within two years, and I flatter myself that you will not have to spend a sou."
"Well, I don't flatter myself that I shall not! No matter! I will do them this favor, which will be the last."
"And the first, too, my dear uncle!"
And, as the document was signed, folded and safely in his pocket, Marcel added, resting his elbows on the table and looking his uncle straight in the face:
"Do you know, my dear uncle of the good Lord, you must be a very mean fellow to allow your brother's country house to be sold."
"Ah! there we are again!" shouted Monsieur Antoine, rising and smiting the table a genuine peasant's blow with his fist. "You would like to see me use my money, earned by the sweat of my brow, to pay for the follies of a spendthrift! Since when have artists needed to have houses of their own and fill them with a heap of gimcracks that cost the eyes out of your head, and make gardens for themselves, with bridges and summer-houses, when they don't even know how to grow a bit of milkweed? What difference does it make to me whether my brother's folly is sold, and his widow doesn't now have any great chefs in her kitchen and great noblemen at her table? They made all the trouble for themselves when they chose to receive counts and marquises, and madame would say: 'My house, my servants, my horses!'—I knew well enough where all that nonsense would bring them up! And now to-day they find they need the old rat who lives in his corner like a wise man and a philosopher, despising society, scorning luxury and giving all his time to useful work! They lower their crests and put out their paws, and he—he wouldn't give anything from pity—those people don't deserve it—he gives from pride, and that's how he gets his revenge. Go and tell that to your aunt, the beautiful princess in distress: that's the errand your mean dog of an uncle gives you to do. Go, I say, you dog of a pettifogger! What are you standing there for, staring at me?"
Marcel was in fact studying his uncle's expression and attitude with his sharp gray eyes, as if he would search the lowest depths of his conscience.
"Bah!" he exclaimed abruptly, as he rose, "you are very harsh, very mean, I say it again; but you are not so cruel as that! You have some reason for hating your sister-in-law which nobody has ever been able to understand, which you don't understand very clearly yourself, I fancy, but which I shall succeed in unearthing, my dear uncle, never fear, for I propose to go to work upon it, and you know that when I have set my heart upon a thing, I am like you, I never let go."
As he spoke Marcel kept his eyes fixed on the rich man, and he detected a notable change in his manner. A sudden pallor drove the coarse flush from his face, which was already burned afresh by the sun of the new spring. His lips trembled, he pulled his hat down to his bushy black eyebrows, turned his back, and went out into his garden without a word.
It was not a garden with little pieces of rockery, little summer-houses, and little terra cotta cows lying in the grass, like those which were so common at that period, in imitation of the rustic style adopted at Trianon. Nor was there an undulating lawn with winding paths, clumps of trees at regular intervals, and truncated columns reflected in limpid ponds, like the garden of the hôtel d'Estrelle, one of the first picturesque attempts at the modern garden à l'anglaise. Nor were there the old-fashioned flower-beds and long regular borders of the time of Louis XIV.; everywhere the ground was turned up and cut by Monsieur Antoine's experiments. On all sides were beds in the shape of baskets, hearts, stars, triangles, ovals, shields and trefoils, surrounded by green borders and narrow paths forming a perfect labyrinth. There were flowers of all sorts, beautiful or curious, but deprived of all their national grace by cages made of rushes, nets of wire, umbrellas of reeds, supports and props of all sorts, to protect them from being marred by the dirt, burned by the sun or broken by the wind. His rosebushes, being constantly trimmed and watered, had an artificial look, they were so exceedingly tidy and shiny. His peonies were ball-shaped at the top, like a grenadier's pompon, and his tulips shone like metal in the sun. Around the flower-garden were immense, melancholy-looking nurseries, like rows of stakes with scraggy bunches of leaves at the top. All this rejoiced the horticulturist's eyes and banished his gloom.