“And now, darling, don’t you think it is nearly time for us to start?”
“Yes,” said Paule, “I will go and tell Trélaz.”
Trélaz was the farmer who was to drive the carriage for them to Chambéry station.
When Paule had gone Mme. Guibert gazed at a group-photograph of her children. There had been six of them then. Now there were only five. Étienne, the eldest, was an engineer in Tonkin. Marcel an officer in the Tirailleurs. Marguerite was a Sister of Charity. François, after failing to pass his examinations, had joined his brother in the Far East. And Paule was the last jewel in her crown of life. What separations, she thought—some of them eternal—had she endured in the course of sixty years!
Paule returned from the farm with the news that Trélaz was ready. She put on her hat in an instant and could not refrain from protesting against her mother’s impatience. She glanced at the old clock which mocked the dock-makers and despite innumerable repairs preserved its own independence of spirit.
“We shall have to wait nearly an hour at the station,” she said.
“I should not like to be late,” insisted Madame Guibert.
And as she left the house she turned to the old servant, who was putting on her spectacles in order that no details of the start might escape her.
“Marie, mind that there are no tramps about!”
She lifted herself with an effort into the rustic carriage which had drawn up in front of the steps. When she had settled down she smiled sweetly at her daughter, and the fleeting expression brought back to her face for just an instant the softness that had been so attractive in her youth. Paule stepped up lightly beside her.