“Ah, monsieur is young,” said Baptiste, with a half satirical smile and shrug of his stooping French shoulders. “We know better when we have been married twenty years. Monsieur Jean was not made to toil, neither night nor day; but he loved madame still, and was jealous of her—he was a beau garçon himself to his last days.”
“Jealous!” Cosmo was horrified; “you speak very lightly, Baptiste,” said the boy, angrily, “but that is worst of all—a lady so beautiful, so good—it is enough to see her to know how good she is—the man deserved to be shot!”
“Nay, nay,” cried Baptiste, laughing, “monsieur does not understand the ways of women—it pleased madame—they love to know their power, and to hear other people know it; all the women are so. Madame loved him all the better for being a little—just a little afraid of her beauty. But he did not live long—poor Monsieur Jean!”
“I hope she was very glad to be rid of such a fellow,” cried Cosmo, who was highly indignant at the deficient husband of his beautiful old lady. Baptiste rubbed the corner of his own eye rather hard with his knuckle. The cobbler had a little sentiment lingering in his ancient bosom for the admired of his youth.
“But he had an air noble—a great spirit,” cried Baptiste. “But madame loved him! She wept—all St. Ouen wept, monsieur—and he was the last of an old race. Now there are only the women, and madame herself is a foreigner and a stranger, and knows not our traditions. Ah, it is a great change for the house of Roche de St. Martin! If you will believe it, monsieur, madame herself is called by the common people nothing but Madame Roche!”
“And that is very sad, Baptiste,” said Cosmo, with a smile. Baptiste smiled too; the cobbler was not particularly sincere in his aristocratical regrets, but, with the mingled wit and sentiment of his country, was sufficiently ready to perceive either the ludicrous or the pathetic aspect of the decayed family.
Cosmo, however, changed his tone with the most capricious haste. Whether she was a plain Madame Roche, or a noble lady, it did not matter much to the stranger. She was at the present moment, in her lovely age and motherhood, the lady of Cosmo’s dreams, and ridicule could not come near her. She was sacred to every idea that was most reverential and full of honor.
“And she is a widow, now, and has a sick daughter to take care of,” said Cosmo, meditatively; “strange how some people in the world have always some burden upon them. Had she no one to take care of her?”
“If monsieur means that,” said Baptiste, with a comical smile, “I do not doubt madame might have married again.”
“Married—she! how dare you say so, Baptiste,” cried the lad, coloring high in indignation; “it is profane!—it is sacrilege!—but she has only this invalid daughter to watch and labor for—nothing more?”