At this she led her little Jean farther away, quite to the edge of the waves, and there they talked for a long time of this marriage on which he had set his heart.
The rising tide drove them back to rejoin the fishers, and then they all made their way to the shore. They roused Pierre, who pretended to be sleeping; and then came a long dinner washed down with many kinds of wine.
CHAPTER VII
In the break, on their way home, all the men dozed excepting Jean. Beausire and Roland dropped every five minutes on to a neighbour’s shoulder which repelled them with a shove. Then they sat up, ceased to snore, opened their eyes, muttered, “A lovely evening!” and almost immediately fell over on the other side.
By the time they reached Havre their drowsiness was so heavy that they had great difficulty in shaking it off, and Beausire even refused to go to Jean’s rooms where tea was waiting for them. He had to be set down at his own door.
The young lawyer was to sleep in his new abode for the first time; and he was full of rather puerile glee which had suddenly come over him, at being able, that very evening, to show his betrothed the rooms she was so soon to inhabit.
The maid had gone to bed, Mme. Roland having declared that she herself would boil the water and make the tea, for she did not like the servants to be kept up for fear of fire.
No one had yet been into the lodgings but herself, Jean, and the workmen, that the surprise might be the greater at their being so pretty.
Jean begged them all to wait a moment in the ante-room. He wanted to light the lamps and candles, and he left Mme. Rosémilly in the dark with his father and brother; then he cried: “Come in!” opening the double door to its full width.
The glass gallery, lighted by a chandelier and little coloured lamps hidden among palms, india-rubber plants, and flowers, was first seen like a scene on the stage. There was a spasm of surprise. Roland, dazzled by such luxury, muttered an oath, and felt inclined to clap his hands as if it were a pantomime scene. They then went into the first drawing-room, a small room hung with dead gold and furnished to match. The larger drawing-room—the lawyer’s consulting-room, very simple, hung with light salmon-colour—was dignified in style.