Here, under an awning, the table was set, gay with white linen and glistening glass and silver, a centrepiece of flowers and jugs of red and yellow wine. The wistaria was in blossom, a world of colour and fragrance, shaken at odd moments by the swift dartings of innumerable lizards. The sun shone hot and clear; the still air, as you touched it, felt like velvet.
'Oh, what a heavenly place, what a heavenly day,' cried Paul; 'it only needs a woman.' And then, meeting André's eye, he caught himself up, with a gesture of contrition. 'I beg a thousand pardons. I forgot your cloth. If you,' he added, 'would only forget it too, what larks we might have together. Allons, à table.'
And they sat down.
If Paul had sincerely wished to forfeit André's respect, he could scarcely have employed more efficacious means to do so, than his speech and conduct throughout the meal that followed. You know how flippant, how 'fly-away,' he can be when the mood seizes him, how wholeheartedly he can play the fool. To-day he really behaved outrageously; and, since the priest maintained a straight countenance, I think the wonder is that he didn't excommunicate him.
'I remember you were a teetotaller, André, when you were young,' his host began, pushing a decanter towards him.
'That, monsieur, was because my mother wished it, and my father was a drunkard,' André answered bluntly. 'Since my father's death, I have taken wine in moderation.' He filled his glass.
'I remember once I cooked some chestnuts over a spirit-stove, and you refused to touch them, on the ground that they were alcoholic.'
'That would have been from a confusion of thought,' the curé explained, with never a smile.
But it was better to err on the side of scrupulosity than on that of self-indulgence.'
'Ah, that depends. That depends on whether the pleasure you got from your renunciation equalled that you might have got from the chestnuts.'