The curé ate long and with an admirable appetite, and shortly after dinner showed an amiable inclination to retire into a corner of one of the parlors where a few luxurious armchairs stood in inviting solitude.
“Suppose I were to try one of these fauteuils,” he said in a jocular way to Eugene; and dropping into one, he buried his face in a newspaper which Mr. Manning handed him, and over whose pages, which were almost wholly unintelligible to him, he was soon dozing gently.
Mr. Manning politely ignored his presence; and, being chiefly interested in Eugene, he, quite unintentionally, kept the lad on the rack for some time by asking him further questions about himself and his plans for the future.
The boy could not evade his sharp businesslike inquiries as he had done those of his wife. He endured them with the best grace possible, only growing a little white in the effort to control himself. As soon as Mrs. Manning’s return from the nursery, where she had been to see her child, gave Eugene an excuse for leaving, he rose gracefully, and looked toward the curé.
“What, going already?” said Mr. Manning. “Mamma, can’t this boy say good-by to your little daughter? He thinks a great deal of her;” and his eyes gleamed mischievously as they rested on Eugene.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Manning. “As a general thing I don’t like her to be disturbed after she goes to bed, but we will make an exception in favor of her playfellow.”
“Come along, then,” said Mr. Manning; and he ran up-stairs more nimbly than Eugene, and waited for him at the top of the staircase.
“Here we are,” he said briskly; and he opened the door of a dimly lighted room. “Are you asleep, pet?”
“No, papa,” said Virgie sleepily; and Eugene saw her pretty head rising from a crib.