Madame Honorat, swelling with pride, faltered: "Good heavens! if I might make so bold—if I might make so bold, Monsieur le Comte, as——"
"If you might make so bold as what, dear Madame?"
"As to ask you to share our humble meal."
"Faith—faith, I would say 'yes.'"
The doctor, ill at ease, muttered: "But we have nothing, nothing—soup, a joint of beef, and a chicken, that's all!"
Gontran laughed: "That's quite enough for me. I accept the invitation."
And he dined at the Honorat household. The fat woman rose up, went to take the dishes out of the servant-maid's hands, in order that the latter might not spill the sauce over the tablecloth, and, in spite of her husband's impatience, insisted on attending at table herself.
The Comte congratulated her on the excellence of the cooking, on the good house she kept, on her attention to the duties of hospitality, and he left her inflamed with enthusiasm.
He returned to leave his card, accepted a fresh invitation, and thenceforth made his way constantly to Madame Honorat's house, to which the Oriol girls had paid visits frequently also for many years as neighbors and friends.
So then he spent hours there, in the midst of the three ladies, attentive to both sisters, but accentuating clearly, from day to day, his marked preference for Louise.