"I do not want you to go like that. No; since you are here I will not let you say that I have sent you away without doing the honours. The thought would weigh heavy on me. I will not!"
"No, M. Bastian, I ought not to be here. I am in the way; I cannot stay one instant."
He moved to go away. The solid hand of the old Mayor of Alsheim fastened round the wrist he held. His voice rose and became harsh.
"Presently. But do not at least refuse the civility I am accustomed to show to all who come here. It is the custom of the country and of the house. Drink with me, Jean Oberlé, or I shall repudiate you, and we shall not even recognise each other."
Jean remembered that no house in the country round Barr or Obernai, not even the oldest and richest, possessed better recipes for making beam-tree-berry brandy or cherry brandy, or elderberry wine, or wine made with dried grapes, or spring drinks. He saw that the old Mayor of Alsheim would be deeply hurt by a refusal, and that the offer was a means of showing his cordiality without disavowing in words, or in thought, the mother, queen, and mistress of the big house, who continued to ignore the guest, because the guest was the son of Joseph Oberlé.
"So be it," he said.
Then M. Bastian called, "Odile!"
The hands that held the linen, near the stove, rested on the folds of her black dress, and for half a minute there were three human beings, each with very different thoughts, who awaited her who was going to enter at the end of the room, on the right, near the great walnut cupboard. She came out of the shadow of a neighbouring room and advanced into the light, while Jean controlled his feelings and was saying to himself, "I did well to remember her!"
"Give me the oldest brandy that we have," said the father.
Odile Bastian had at first smiled at her father, whom she saw near the door, then she had, with a movement of her brown eyebrows, shown her astonishment, without displeasure, when she recognised Jean Oberlé near him; then the smile had disappeared when she saw her mother, bending over her work-table, dumb and holding herself aloof from what was going on around her. Then her bosom heaved, the words she was going to say were arrested before reaching her lips; and Odile Bastian, too intelligent not to guess the affront, too much a woman to emphasise the secret trouble, had simply and silently obeyed. She had sought a key in the drawer of a chest, had gone to the big cupboard, and raising herself on the tips of her toes, one hand leaning on one of the doors at the top of the piece of furniture, her head thrown back, she ransacked the depths of the hiding-place.