M. Landeau smiled joylessly. An awkward pause followed this sally so artless and yet so cynical. Only Madame Orlandi was amused.
“Oh, Isabelle, you terrible child!” she said.
Alice kissed Paule as she said good-bye, and Marcel was lost in admiration of the languid beauty which accompanied her every movement and gave her an unsubstantial, airy grace. In his love was mingled a desire to protect her. He would have given all his strength to this lovely child, whose frailty inspired him with an almost religious emotion.
Alone with her brother on the road, Paule was kissing the children, who had stopped their game under the gaze of those whose hostility they had divined.
“Poor little creatures!” she said with an indignant flash of the eye. “They don’t love you in these days!”
The peasant woman was flattered and smiled at the girl. “There is a crowd of them and they grow like weeds!”
“God is good and the earth is big,” said Marcel, who remembered his father’s joy when he saw beautiful children.
“Yes, Monsieur Guibert. My mother had twelve. I have three brothers in Paris and four in America. They are far away, but they are still living.”
Never having left her native place, she easily confused distances. Paule pointed to the group of chubby mites, who had begun to laugh again.
“They will be able to keep you later on!”