"Very proud," echoed Charlus. "To see a fine thing finely done always gives pleasure. But when the one who does it belongs to the comme il faut, class, the pleasure is doubled."
"It is indeed," said Bressieux, shaking Landri's hand in his turn. "We are not spoiled in that way."
"It's because comme il faut folk think too much of their cakes and ale," retorted Marie, glancing at the Seigneur de la Rochebrocante with the laughing insolence that was peculiar to her.
"It is principally because the comme il faut folk are not what they should be [comme il faudrait]," said the marquis. "It's so easy to be of one's own party, nothing more, whereas nowadays no one is of his own opinion even; and I see none but people who, on the pretext of broad and liberal ideas, admit that their enemies are in the right. Landri was of his own party, that's the whole story, without talk and without parade. You must tell them about it, my boy, and how those excellent peasants applauded you and your dragoons when you turned on your heel in the teeth of the disgusted prefect.—But luncheon is served. Will you allow me to offer you my arm, mademoiselle? Lardin has promised to surpass himself, and we shall have, to drink this tall fellow's health, a certain Musigny of a royal year. For we still drink, and drink Burgundy too, we old fellows, just as we still eat, and with a good appetite, in that old France that you make sport of. A sweet thing your new France is! All mineral waters and diet!"
Liveried servants held the chairs for the guests around the table, the dark wood of which had no cloth, according to the old ceremonial of déjeuners à la française. The great garden imparted an almost rural atmosphere of peace to that room, which the host enlivened with his cordiality. To one who observed him closely the contagious warmth of his joviality was in too striking contrast with the feverish gleam of his eyes, and the traces of suffering on his face. But the pride of defending his name sustained him; and, forestalling himself any possible observation of that sort, he, who had never lied, said:—
"I was very anxious for Landri to return. 'That's the true remedy for me.' I told Louvet, when he talked about diet, apropos of those two or three attacks of vertigo I told you of, Charlus. But it seems to me that this young man doesn't seem glad enough to see us. You'll see that he'll regret the army."
And, not to fall behind the tragic heroism of that comedy, Landri, who was being served at that moment with eggs à la Grandchamp, one of the accomplished Lardin's thousand and one creations, remarked, laughing in his turn:—
"I certainly sha'n't regret the cuisine of the mess. It is true that your chef has outdone himself to celebrate my fall from grace."
He put his fork to his lips with the respectful manner of a gourmand to whom eating is a solemn affair, which drew from Bressieux the exclamation:—
"You are coming to it! The table is the least deceitful of all things, and when one of Lardin's chefs-d'œuvre is put before one, in Chantilly of such delicacy as this," he added, pointing to his plate,—and one could not tell from the twinkling of his eye whether he was giving vent to his enthusiasm for antiques or was indulging in secret sarcasm,—"one may well say, despite the famous mot, that one knows the joy of living!"