The salon underwent a change. There were as many commonplaces uttered as ever; but those who spoke them did so with less smug importance than before. People were less sure of themselves. The talented amateurs in singing and piano-playing sought for shades of expression and feeling. Lastly, the order of the concert became “subject to alterations” and the performers no longer wore the air of automata obeying predestined laws. There were asides in the conversation; people talked among themselves, for the pleasure of talking and in accordance with their various sympathies.
One evening, Beaufrelant drew Gilberte into a corner and said:
“I am mad, madame, do you hear? I am mad. I care for nothing, I am indifferent to my flowers, it is you all the time. I am free: my name, my life are yours; give me some hope....”
The next day, le Hourteulx made his declaration:
“Life has become a burden to me. If you do not take pity on me, madame, I shall cease to exist.... But I can hardly believe that you will reject me.... Do you dislike me?... I am a widower and well-off, you know....”
That was the only dark spot that troubled Gilberte’s serenity: the more or less discreet attentions which all those men paid her. Simare the younger went far more cleverly to work and tried to inspire confidence with a pretence of delicacy by which Gilberte allowed herself to be taken in. But Beaufrelant and Le Hourteulx showed no pity: they pursued her relentlessly, speaking to her, not unnaturally, as to a woman who knows what life is and who could not well take offence at a declaration or even at the terms in which it was made.
Poor Gilberte did not take offence, but she was very much surprised; and the sighs and transports of those two men of forty bored her terribly. She avoided them and she also had to avoid young Lartiste, who tried the effect of poetry and fired the most passionate verses of Musset and Verlaine at her; the brother too of the Demoiselles Bottentuit, a schoolboy who was only let out on Thursdays and Sundays and who, the third time he saw her, threatened to kill himself at her feet; and lastly a cousin of Mlle. du Bocage, who was engaged to the elder Charmeron girl and who offered to break off the marriage and abandon a very good match if it caused her the faintest annoyance.
She no longer enjoyed at the Logis the atmosphere of peace and isolation so dear to her. Adèle had to defend the door, with the vigilance of a watch-dog, against the daring suitors who tried to obtain admission to her mistress upon some pretext:
“Madame is at home to nobody; I have positive instructions.”
The old servant saw through the disguise of M. le Hourteulx, who appeared dressed up as a beggar, and of Beaufrelant, who, in cap and blouse, came round with a green-grocer’s barrow.