* * *
My fine enthusiasm had no immediate result. I waited two years before I returned to the Sleeping Woods. Without losing a minute, I had signed the deed of transfer in due form, but once I was away other adventures less strange and more absorbing led me elsewhere. I endorsed the accounts without verifying them. How many accounts during my lifetime have I passed without verifying! In this case at least, with my scrupulous superintendent, I could do so without fear. And then one fine day, remembering my property, I took there a company of my acquaintances, with little enough to recommend them.
I had notified Mr. Mairieux by telegram. We descended upon the place like a cyclone, with champagne, patties and cakes, a rattle of dishes and an uproar of cries and laughter. It was a great scandal in the country. The Mairieux family, shut up in the lodge, did not even show their noses at the windows. And when I visited them, I encountered icy frigidity. I enquired familiarly for news of their daughter, whom I had not seen.
“And Raymonde?”
“Mlle. Mairieux is very well,” replied her father solemnly.
I left there the more depressed, because I felt that I had done wrong disturbing the peace of these good people.
But then, are you compelled to place restraint upon yourself in order to retain the good opinion of your superintendent?
Happily Mariette, the cook, comforted me with a word of welcome. But I dared not order another gratin from her. And the pretentious chef whom I had brought with me completely spoiled the one which he tried himself to prepare for me.
* * *
I wonder at landlords who live on their estates. How do they spend their time? As for me, I was always knocking about, always somewhere else.