The young man sat down and let his eyes wander round the well-known room, whose chief ornament consisted in a row of aquarelles executed by M. Offarel in Government time. There were about a dozen, some representing bits of landscape that he had discovered in his Sunday walks, others being copies of pictures he admired, and which René's more modern taste therefore detested. A faded felt carpet, six cloth-covered chairs and a sofa completed the furniture of this room, which René had once looked upon as a symbol of almost idyllic simplicity, but which now appeared doubly hateful to him in his present state of mind, aggravated by the acidity of Madame Offarel's accents.
'Well, did you enjoy yourself amongst all your grand folks last night? I suppose your friend only visits people now who keep a carriage, eh? Whenever he opens his mouth you hear of nothing but countesses and princesses. Dear me! He needn't think himself as grand as all that—he was giving lessons only ten years ago.'
'Mamma!' exclaimed Rosalie in beseeching tones.
'Well, what does he want to be so stuck up about?' continued the old lady. 'He looks at us as much as to say "Poor devils!"'
'How mistaken you are in him!' replied René. 'He is rather fond of going into smart society, it is true, but that is only natural in an artist. Why, it's the same with me,' he went on, with a smile. 'I was delighted to go to this affair last night and see that magnificent house filled with flowers and fine dresses. Do you think that prevents me appreciating my modest home and my old friends? All writers have that mad longing for splendour—even Balzac and Musset had it. It is a childish fancy of no importance.'
Whilst the young man was speaking Rosalie darted a look at her mother that told of more happiness than her poor eyes had expressed for months past. In thus confessing to and ridiculing his own inmost feelings, René was obeying impulses too complicated for the simple girl to understand. When Madame Offarel had spoken of 'your grand folks' the young man had seen by the look of anguish in her daughter's eyes that his love for the false glamour of elegance had not escaped Rosalie's perspicacity. He was ashamed of being found guilty of such a plebeian failing, and therefore laid bare his impressions as though he were not their dupe—partly in order to reassure the girl and spare her unnecessary pain, partly in order to indulge in a little weakness without having to reproach himself unduly.
Certain natures—and, owing to the habit of introspection, these are frequently found amongst writers—find pardon for their sins in mere confession. In defending Claude Larcher, René, with an irony that would have escaped sharper critics than a trusting girl, managed to administer a sharp rebuke to his own follies. Whilst openly ridiculing what he himself called his snobbishness, he continued to make those mean-spirited mental comparisons that would force themselves upon him all that day. He could not help measuring the gulf that separated the creatures he had seen at Madame Komof's—living blooms reared in the hothouse of European aristocracy—from the pale-faced and simple-looking creature before him, her hands spoilt by work, her hair tied back in a knot, and dressed so plainly as to look almost uncouth. The comparison, when dwelt upon, became quite painful, and caused the young man one of those inexplicable fits of ill-humour that always nonplussed Rosalie.
Knowing him as she did, she could always see when he had them, but she never guessed their cause. She knew by instinct that there were two Renés existing side by side—the one kind, tender, and good, easily moved and unable to withstand grief—in a word, the René she loved; the other cold, indifferent, and easily irritated. The bond that united these two beings she was, however, unable to find. All she knew was that before the triumphant success of the 'Sigisbée' she had seen only the first of these two Renés, and since then only the second. She was afraid to say 'the unfortunate success;' she had been so proud of it, and yet she would have given so much to go back to the time when her darling was poor and unknown, but all her own. How quickly he could make his voice hard, so hard that even the words addressed to another seemed by their intonation alone to be intended to wound her. At that moment, for instance, he was talking to her mother, and the mere accent that he gave to words empty in themselves touched Rosalie to the quick.
Suddenly Madame Offarel, who had been listening intently for a few seconds, started up. 'I can hear Cendrette scratching at the door,' she said; 'the dear creature wants to go out.'
With these words she returned to the dining-room in order to open the yard door for her favourite cat. She was probably delighted to have an excuse for leaving the two young people together; for, Cendrette having gone off, she stood for some time stroking Raton, another of her feline boarders. 'How clever you are, my Raton! How I love you, my little demon!' These were some of the pet names that she had devised for her cats, and as she repeated them and a dozen others in rather loud tones she was saying to herself: 'If he has come at once, that proves he is still faithful to her—but when will he propose? Poor girl! He'll not find a jewel like her in any of his gilded saloons. She's pretty, gentle, good, and true!' Then aloud: 'Isn't that so, my Raton? You understand, don't you, my son?' And as the cat arched her back, rubbed her head against her mistress's skirt, and purred voluptuously, the mother's internal monologue went on: 'And he is a good match, too. We didn't despise him before; so we have a right to set our caps at him now. She won't have to drudge, as I do for Offarel. It's a pity that she should have to spoil her pretty fingers botching up this old linen.' With the mechanical activity of an old housewife, she made a small pile of the handkerchiefs already gone through, and continued her thoughts: 'Her little dowry, too! What a surprise it will be!' By exercising the most stringent economy, she had managed to save, out of her husband's modest salary, some fifteen thousand francs, which she had invested unknown to M. Offarel. She smiled to herself and listened with some anxiety. 'I wonder what they are talking about!'