He next opened a large morocco portfolio and took out of it plans of the new establishment—the hotel and the Casino—as well as the estimates, and the most economical methods of procuring materials, which had been all prepared by the contractors, so that they might be approved of and signed before the end of the meeting. The works should be commenced by the beginning of the week after next.
The two Oriols alone wanted to investigate and discuss matters. But Andermatt, becoming irritated, said to them: "Did I ask you for money? No! Then give me peace! And, if you are not satisfied, we'll take another division on it."
Thereupon, they signed along with the remaining members of the Board; and the meeting terminated.
All the inhabitants of the place were waiting to see them going out, so intense was the excitement. The people bowed respectfully to them. As the two peasants were about to return home, Andermatt said to them:
"Do not forget that we are all dining together at the hotel. And bring your girls; I have brought them presents from Paris."
They were to meet at seven o'clock in the drawing-room of the Hotel Splendid.
It was a magnificent dinner to which the banker had invited the principal bathers and the authorities of the village. Christiane, who was the hostess, had the curé at her right, and the mayor at her left.
The conversation was all about the future establishment and the prospects of the district. The two Oriol girls had found under their napkins two caskets containing two bracelets of pearls and emeralds, and wild with delight, they talked as they had never done before, with Gontran sitting between them. The elder girl herself laughed with all her heart at the jokes of the young man, who became animated, while he talked to them, and in his own mind formed about them those masculine judgments, those judgments daring and secret, which are generated in the flesh and in the mind, at the sight of every pretty woman.
Paul did not eat, and did not open his lips. It seemed to him that his life was going to end to-night. Suddenly he remembered that just a month had glided away, day by day, since the open-air dinner by the lake of Tazenat. He had in his soul that vague sense of pain caused rather by presentiments than by grief, known to lovers alone, that sense of pain which makes the heart so heavy, the nerves so vibrating that the slightest noise makes us pant, and the mind so wretchedly sad that everything we hear assumes a somber hue so as to correspond with the fixed idea.
As soon as they had quitted the table, he went to join Christiane in the drawing-room.