"I don't use it," replied Galuchet, haughtily. "With Monsieur Antoine's permission, I will leave the table."
"At your pleasure, young man, at your pleasure," said the châtelain. "Monsieur Emile doesn't enjoy long sessions either, and you can stroll about a bit. Janille will show you the château, or, if you prefer to go down to the brook, get your lines ready. We will join you directly, and take you where you will find good sport."
"Oh! yes," said the carpenter, "he's a fisher of small fry! He does nothing else every evening at Gargilesse, and when anyone speaks to him he makes a wry face because it disturbs his fish. Well, we will go directly and help him to catch something better than his small fry. Look you, Monsieur Maljuché, if I don't put you in the way of carrying home a salmon for your supper, I'll agree to change names with you. You don't need to be in such a hurry. The boat should be in good condition, for I nailed a plank in its belly not long ago. We'll find an old harpoon somewhere, and the Devil's Rock, where the salmon usually go to take a nap in the sun, isn't far away. But it's a dangerous place, and you must not go alone."
"We will all go," said Gilberte, "if Jean manages the boat. It's very interesting sport, and the place itself is magnificent."
"Oh! if you are coming, Mademoiselle Gilberte, I will await your pleasure," said Galuchet.
"Hear that! wouldn't anyone think she was going on your account, paper-scratcher? This youngster is impertinent beyond everything. Is everybody like that where you come from? Oh! don't put on that indignant expression and look over your shoulder, for it doesn't frighten me much. If you choose to be agreeable, I will be, too; but if, just because you are dressed in black like a notary, you think you can leave the table when I remain, you are much mistaken. Sit down, sit down, Maljuché! I haven't finished drinking, and you are going to drink with me."
"I have had enough," said Galuchet, resisting. "I tell you I have had enough!"
But the carpenter would have broken him in two like a lath rather than let him go. He forced him to sit down again on the bench and swallow several more bumpers, Galuchet striving to show a bold front to evil-fortune, and Monsieur Antoine shielding him ineffectually against his old friend's malicious shafts, although he did not share the antipathy which the secretary's face and manners aroused in the rest of the family.
Emile had slowly followed Gilberte and Janille into the courtyard, and, despite the little old woman's jealous watchfulness, he had succeeded in telling his sweetheart that he had obeyed her orders zealously, and that he found his father in such a favorable frame of mind that he could safely risk some overture in the following week. But Gilberte thought that the risk would be too great, and urged him to persevere in that sedentary, laborious life. Courage seemed easy to them both. Now that Emile was sure that he was loved, he was so happy that he thought that he could demand nothing more of fortune for a long while. There was a divine tranquillity in the depths of his heart. Gilberte's clear and searching glance said so many things to him now!
There is, in the dawn of a lover's happiness, a moment of tranquil beatitude, when the most penetrating observer would have difficulty in detecting the secret on the surface. The desire to see and speak to each other every hour seems to disappear with the anxious longing to reach an understanding. When their hearts are bound together by a mutual avowal, neither witnesses nor separation can embarrass them or part them in reality. Thus the clear-sighted Janille was deceived by their peaceful merriment and by the prudence which comes only when suffering and doubt are at an end. The perturbation which Janille had often noticed in young Cardonnet, the sudden flush that rose to Gilberte's cheeks at certain words of which she alone had grasped the meaning, her sadness and her ill-designed agitation when he was late in coming, all had vanished since the trip to Crozant, and Janille was amazed that an incident the consequences of which she had dreaded had caused a favorable change in the state of affairs.