Madame Dulaurens, now really astonished at her behavior, remarked:
“You didn’t tell us, dear friend, that we were to have the pleasure of your society to-day.”
“Oh,” said the Italian, not in the least disconcerted, “I am very easily pleased and I understand your ways. But it is Pistache. He won’t understand. Every day he has his three courses and a sweet. He will think that I have punished him, and he hasn’t deserved it.”
Madame Dulaurens was quite out of patience, but she had a white of egg beaten with some sugar, which was offered to the idol. As they rose from table the little dog, under the influence of his greed, insisted on staying behind, in spite of the frantic calls of his mistress. He paid for it, however. The butler saw him, and having made sure that the coast was clear and the company all gone, with a well-directed kick sent him flying to the other end of the dining-room. Pistache gave vent to a dull growl, but was not at all astonished. All he knew of life consisted of extremes, and he travelled philosophically from kisses to kicks, from the drawing-room to the pantry.
Immediately after lunch M. Dulaurens, assuming a busy and important air, which imparted a comical cast to his placid face, bowed to the ladies and departed to his workroom, where one of his tenants was waiting. It was a question of rent in arrears. The tenant naturally claimed a deduction. Labor was dear, money tight, and the harvests had been bad.
“Bad!” cried M. Dulaurens with that hardness which he appeared to keep for his tenants and tradesmen, and which redeemed him in his own eyes from the weakness which he displayed toward his wife.
“Bad! But what about all last year’s wine? What have you done with it? There were barrels and barrels of it. You haven’t sold it?”
“Oh, Sir, you can’t think that. It would only have fetched a poor price. It was a disgrace. We preferred to drink it ourselves.”
M. Dulaurens, forgetting his peaceful instincts when his interests were concerned, was going to fly into a rage, when his eyes fell on a work lying on his table between a society novel and a book on heraldry. It was Nicole’s handbook: “The Methods of Peace among Mankind.” He had bought it cheap on account of its title and had contented himself with the reading of that alone, which was sympathetic to the natural tranquillity of his disposition. Calming himself, he sent the peasant away with many kind words, but without the slightest concession.
“Landlords are really to be pitied,” he protested. “They do not know what to do. My friend M. Timoléon Mestrallet himself has great difficulty in getting out of debt.”