This compliment was aimed at Lafleur. Monsieur de la Thomassinière beat his brow in despair, while the marquis repeated till he was hoarse:
“Excellent! excellent! The old patriarchal custom—to drink everybody’s health. Noah’s children always touched one another’s glasses.”
Madame Thomas tossed off the glass of madeira at a swallow; but when she had drunk it, she made a wry face and glared at the marquis, crying:
“God! what vile stuff your madeira is! Bah! it tastes like a donkey’s water right in your mouth, my children!”
All the ladies cried out and hid their faces behind their napkins. The men laughed; and Madame Thomas, who saw nothing unnatural in what she had said and thought that they shared her amusement, caused her glass to be filled with another kind of wine; while her son sank back in his chair, muttering:
“I am a ruined man!”
The more Madame Thomas drank, the more loquacious she became. In vain did the marquis fill her plate, and Monsieur de la Thomassinière call to his servants: “Serve monsieur! Remove madame’s plate!” the stout old lady’s voice soared above those of all her fashionable neighbors, for people of fashion are not in the habit of speaking loud.
The old gentleman with the pigeon’s wings, whom Madame Thomas had called a clove, could not digest that insult; he scowled terribly, tried to turn his back on his neighbor, and muttered:
“It’s abominable to invite people like myself to compromise their dignity with such riff-raff! Gad! if they ever catch me here again! I am terribly distressed that I came.”
For all that, the old chevalier did not go away, but ate and drank for four, by way of compensation for the annoyance that he felt.