As he was about to serve the soup, the marquis saw Jacques le Bréchaud put out his hand as if to put in more salt. He instinctively declined that uncalled-for assistance; but he was surprised to find that Jacques persisted, and, on taking hold of his hand he saw that the salt had a peculiar look.
"Let me do it," said Jacques, "they like their soup well-salted."
And his face wore a strange smile which impressed the marquis.
"No poison, Jacques!" he whispered; "that is cowardly, and cowardice brings bad luck! God alone can save us! Let us not anger God!"
Jacques dropped the rat poison with which he had proposed to season the soup for the charming guests of the Geault-Rouge. The marquis's generous and sentimental outburst was inexplicable to him; but he submitted to his ascendancy with a sort of superstitious awe.
Bois-Doré handed the soup and the whole first course to Madame Proserpine's bearded pages; he breathed a little more freely; they seemed disposed to give him somewhat more liberty.
Mario went to the door from time to time, indeed he might have made his escape at that moment by pretending to go out to the shed to fetch wood; but he was careful not to mention the fact to his father. He would have insisted upon his taking advantage of it, and not for anything in the world would the child have parted from him.
"If my father is to be killed," he thought, "I will die with him; but I shall not abandon the hope of saving him until the last moment."
Madame Pignoux also began to hope. Madame Proserpine's men seemed more insolent but somewhat less forbidding than those who had been in the kitchen before.
They were almost all Frenchmen and young. They issued their orders as cynically as the others; but there was a sort of boisterous gayety in their manner which might mean that they were good fellows at bottom, or, at least, that they might forget themselves for a moment.