Major Fallière ceremoniously offered her his arm, escorted her to the door, and opened it. Madame Vernet paused on the threshold.
“I go,” she said, “to seek refuge and protection with my aunt and uncle in Mézières.”
And the Major shut the door after her.
Mademoiselle Bouchard then rose majestically and advanced to Monsieur Bouchard.
“And you, Paul,” she said, “will seek refuge and protection in the house of your sister in the Rue Clarisse, where you spent thirty happy and peaceful years. You will there resume the orderly and quiet life interrupted by your unfortunate excursion into the Rue Bassano. You will return to early hours and wholesome meals. You will have boiled mutton and rice, with a small glass of claret, for your dinner, and ten o’clock will be your hour for retiring. An occasional visit to a picture gallery or a museum will supply you with amusements far more intellectual than the orgies you have been indulging in at the Pigeon House.”
Monsieur Bouchard, the image of despair, looked round him. Captain de Meneval and Léontine were in fits of laughter. The three girls, huddled together on the sofa, were tittering; the grim Major was smiling broadly. Even a worm will turn, and so did Monsieur Bouchard.
“I am sorry, my dear Céleste,” he said, in a voice he vainly endeavored to make cool and debonair, “but what you suggest is impossible. I have taken my apartment for a year. And I find that boiled mutton and rice for dinner do not suit my constitution. I—I—I—shall remain in the Rue Bassano.”
A round of applause from Major Fallière, Léontine and Victor, in which the three young ladies joined, much to Monsieur Bouchard’s annoyance, greeted this. Nevertheless, it stiffened his backbone.
“Do you mean to say that you do not intend to return to the Rue Clarisse?” asked Mademoiselle Bouchard, in much agitation.