The young dandy let himself drop into an easy-chair, just as a pretty woman falls gracefully upon a sofa. Eugenie and her mother took ordinary chairs and sat beside him, near the fire.
“Do you always live here?” said Charles, thinking the room uglier by daylight than it had seemed the night before.
“Always,” answered Eugenie, looking at him, “except during the vintage. Then we go and help Nanon, and live at the Abbaye des Noyers.”
“Don’t you ever take walks?”
“Sometimes on Sunday after vespers, when the weather is fine,” said Madame Grandet, “we walk on the bridge, or we go and watch the haymakers.”
“Have you a theatre?”
“Go to the theatre!” exclaimed Madame Grandet, “see a play! Why, monsieur, don’t you know it is a mortal sin?”
“See here, monsieur,” said Nanon, bringing in the eggs, “here are your chickens,—in the shell.”
“Oh! fresh eggs,” said Charles, who, like all people accustomed to luxury, had already forgotten about his partridge, “that is delicious: now, if you will give me the butter, my good girl.”
“Butter! then you can’t have the galette.”