"I tell you candidly you would be doing wrong. There is no hurry over there. You will go to-morrow. Come; do this for my sake."
Arnoux put down his candlestick, and, embracing him, said:
"You are a right good fellow!"
CHAPTER IX.
The Friend of the Family.
Then began for Frederick an existence of misery. He became the parasite of the house.
If anyone were indisposed, he called three times a day to know how the patient was, went to the piano-tuner's, contrived to do a thousand acts of kindness; and he endured with an air of contentment Mademoiselle Marthe's poutings and the caresses of little Eugène, who was always drawing his dirty hands over the young man's face. He was present at dinners at which Monsieur and Madame, facing each other, did not exchange a word, unless it happened that Arnoux provoked his wife with the absurd remarks he made. When the meal was over, he would play about the room with his son, conceal himself behind the furniture, or carry the little boy on his back, walking about on all fours, like the Bearnais.[11] At last, he would go out, and she would at once plunge into the eternal subject of complaint—Arnoux.
It was not his misconduct that excited her indignation, but her pride appeared to be wounded, and she did not hide her repugnance towards this man, who showed an absence of delicacy, dignity, and honour.
"Or rather, he is mad!" she said.