"What good will that do?" Bernardet replied, also laughingly; "it will not prevent you from publishing an interview."
"You think so. Au revoir! I must hurry and make my copy. And you?"
"I? A photograph."
They separated, and Bernardet entered his house. His daughters had grieved over his sudden departure on Sunday on his fête day. They met him with joyous shouts when he appeared, and threw themselves upon him. "Papa! Here is papa!"
Mme. Bernardet was also happy. They could go then to the garden and finish the picture. But their joy subsided, night had fallen, and Bernardet, preoccupied, wished to shut himself up so that he might reflect on all that had happened, and perhaps to work a little, even to-day.
"It is thy fête day, Bernardet. Wilt thou not rest to-day?"
"I can rest at dinner, dear. Until then, I must use the time reading over a mass of evidence."
"Then thou wilt need a lamp?" asked Mme. Bernardet.
"Yes, my dear; light the lamp."
Next to their bedchamber M. Bernardet had fitted up a little room for his private use. It was a tiny den, in which was a mahogany table loaded with books and papers, and at which he worked when he had time, reading, annotating, copying from the papers, and collecting extracts for hours at a time. No one was allowed to enter this room, filled with old papers. Mme. Bernardet well called it "a nest of microbes." Bernardet found pleasure in this sporadic place, which in Summer was stifling. In Winter he worked without a fire.