"How convenient it is to be afraid!"

To afford an agreeable diversion to the guests, Monsieur Férulus came forward with his poem, and proposed to read it. But the dinner had lasted until late in the evening. The La Pincerie family was fatigued. Monsieur le marquis was already beginning to snore in his armchair, and they concluded that it was preferable to send him to snore in his bed. Everybody retired, each one armed with a candle, the light of which gleamed like a minute point in the vast corridors of the château. One after another, each light disappeared; and just as happens when paper is consumed by fire, all those luminous streaks vanished and left absolute darkness behind.

XXIII
ANXIETY.—JEALOUSY

For a fortnight the La Pincerie family had been settled at the Château of La Roche-Noire, where Robineau did his utmost to provide varied entertainment for his guests; nevertheless, the time passed rather monotonously. The ladies, who rose as late in the country as in the town, did not descend until the breakfast hour; then they went up to their rooms again, to devote themselves to their toilet, and that lasted until noon. Then they met in the salon, and chatted there, or strolled about the gardens. Several times Robineau suggested an excursion among the mountains; but if the weather was fine, Eudoxie was afraid of the heat; if it was overcast, she was afraid of dampness or rain. But if by chance she resolved to defy the elements, then it was Cornélie who refused to go out, because she suspected that Alfred would be her sister’s escort; and she was not at all desirous to be always on the arm of her fiancé, with whom she seemed to feel that she would have plenty of time to be alone in the future.

As for Edouard, the presence of the La Pincerie family did not prevent his going every morning to see Isaure; he simply returned to the château a little earlier; but they never saw him at breakfast, which fact was a subject of constant jesting for Robineau; whereas the ladies, terribly scandalized at the idea that anyone could prefer riding or a goatherd to their society, treated Edouard with much coolness, and constantly hurled epigrams at him, to which the young man listened with a courteous indifference which served only to increase the irritation of the marquis’s daughters.

Monsieur de la Pincerie, who had declared himself so devoted to hunting, and who passed an hour every morning examining his gun, had not yet found himself in a sufficiently hardy and active condition to take the field; and although Robineau had purchased a very fine new rifle, he seemed in no hurry to use it. As for Uncle Mignon, he was always ready to do whatever anyone wanted; he had become so accustomed to that, that the excellent man would have thought that he was ill if he had felt any will of his own.

The ladies ordinarily went up to their apartments an hour before dinner, to change their dresses. Monsieur Férulus did all that lay in his power to remain at table a long while, wherein Uncle Mignon seconded him warmly. When they returned to the salon, the whist table was prepared, and monsieur le marquis did not allow five minutes’ interval between dinner and the game. Mignon, Monsieur Férulus and Robineau made up Monsieur de la Pincerie’s table. As La Roche-Noire played very badly, he was usually scolded throughout the game; and if he chanced to turn his head or to say a word to the ladies, who were talking with the young men at a short distance, the marquis would say to him with much temper:

"Pray attend to what you are doing, monsieur! You are not playing with the ladies, but with us!"

Thereupon Robineau would bow submissively and falter:

"I beg pardon, that is true! I was absent-minded!"