Fandor, with the landlord’s help—for the journalist had proved himself from the very start a most indifferent waiter—served the first course, during which not half-a-dozen words were spoken. The landlord, when he found himself in the kitchen again, alone with Fandor, could not hide his surprise.
“For the last twenty years,” he declared, “I’ve had wedding-parties here, I’ve known customers of every sort and kind, but anything like those folks yonder—never! They couldn’t be more dismal if it was a funeral they’d been at!”
Meanwhile, Ascott sat deep in thought; he was realizing the appalling folly he had been guilty of in marrying Nini Guinon.
“How could I ever for one single instant have entertained such an idea ... and put it into execution?”
But the unfortunate young man quickly called to mind that, if he had not followed the injunctions of Père Moche, the plaint lodged by the Guinon family would have taken its course, and that would have equally involved disgrace, disgrace more terrible still, more irremediable even than the grotesque marriage he had just contracted. Ascott saw clear now—he was the victim of an odious piece of blackmailing, an abominable plot. He was so worked up he felt himself prepared to do the maddest things, he meditated going straight to the Procureur de la République to denounce the whole business.... But the unhappy man, when he looked closer into this last desperate resource, realized that the situation was past cure, that no one could help him, that he was simply a victim, and a ridiculous victim at that, and that, in fact, there was something else, something more serious, which after all tied his hands and gave him pause. Nini Guinon was enceinte; he must not, he could not forget that fact. Ascott could stand no more of it; still controlling his feelings, he leant over to his wife, sitting next him, and whispered:
“I am a little unwell, so I am going to withdraw into some room near; I count on being left to myself, and shall expect you to join me there when you have finished breakfast.” Nini had scarcely gathered the sense of her husband’s words before the latter had disappeared.
In a moment, as if by enchantment, all recovered their spirits; they clinked glasses, they drained bumpers, they ate with a better appetite, gaiety reigned on every face: decidedly, the English milord had done well to leave them to themselves; they would be more of a family party, more at their ease.
“Say, Père Moche,” observed Bouzille, “he don’t strike me as being much of a gallant, your niece’s husband! how’s she going to hit it off, little Nini, with a lump of wood like that, eh?”
“Don’t you trouble your head,” broke in the girl, “I know what I’ve got to do.”
Then, as everybody stopped talking to listen: