“We are not of the same race,” he said.
She took his arm and was bending forward to kiss him when she stopped.
“Listen,” she said.
“Owls! The wood is full of them, Marcel. Let us go away. They make me shudder. The peasants say they are a sign of death.”
He shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
CHAPTER X
MARCEL’S DEPARTURE
A family meal before a departure reminds us in its sadness of the first meal we have together after the final disappearance of an habitual guest. If no one is missing as yet, still joy has fled. Everyone tries vainly to brighten it, and of this touching, fruitless effort is born a deeper sadness.
Thus the dining-room at Le Maupas, in spite of the October sun which shone into it, was silent and mournful. Marcel was going away at nightfall in Trélaz’s carriage to catch the six o’clock train at the station. When the conversation languished nobody thought of taking it up again. With a few unimportant words, spoken without enthusiasm, it would falter back to life, only to die out once more. Marie, the old servant, had prepared Marcel’s favorite dishes. Carrying them back to the kitchen almost untouched, she murmured in a cross voice which expressed her own sorrow:
“It isn’t right—it isn’t right. They want to starve themselves to death!”
After lunch, Marcel went out with his sister.