"No, no!"
Jean's tragic air vanished in a rush of real emotion. He put his wife from him and looked at her sorrowfully.
"Poor soul!" he said slowly. "And you really mean that I haven't tired you out yet with all my moods and cross words? No? Then, decidedly, we must rub on a little longer still."
She embraced him with all the gratitude a woman feels when her good offices are accepted.
"To-morrow," she said cheerfully, "to-morrow will bring you some tobacco."
"To-morrow will also, I imagine, bring Périne," he replied, with a laugh, and when he laughed it was possible to see what a handsome young fellow the haggard man had been. "Well, I am not sure that Périne isn't preferable to old Plon-Plon. When I hear him prosing away to you on the duty of being contented, it's all I can do not to knock him down. You a bad manager, indeed!"
"Do not talk of anything so imprudent."
"He would roll like a ball," said Jean longingly.
"Jean!"
"Bah, you need not fear. To do things sometimes in imagination is the only way of keeping my muscles in exercise. Oh, if I could only get a little fresh air, or drop in at the brasserie and hear what is doing!"