"That would be very wrong in him," replied La Ragaude, "and I don't believe Jeannet capable of such wicked sentiments. Jealousy is not one of his faults; on the contrary, he always thinks of others before himself."
"That may be, that may be, but you cannot judge of wine, no matter how old you may know it to be, before tasting; and, in the same way, you cannot answer for any quality of the heart until it has been tried. So it was very easy for Jeannet not to be jealous when there was no subject for jealousy; but, if you were not always blind and deaf to his defects, you would acknowledge that from the day that Isidore put his foot in this house he has changed as much as milk turned into curds."
"That may all be," said Pierrette, who could not answer her husband's objections.
"That may all be so easily that it is positively so," replied Ragaud, "and Jeannet will not re-enter this house until I have spoken very plainly to him, and made him promise to treat Isidore as a brother."
"That is just what I think," replied good Pierrette, who loved peace above all things, "and you always speak wisely."
Jeannette, for her part, had a little secret annoyance that she carefully concealed, but which made her more irritable and less docile than usual, greatly to the astonishment of Pierrette, who thought her to be at the summit of happiness. After being rather sullen with Jeannet, because he did not appear delighted with her marriage, and, above all, with her intended, she was now displeased to see Isidore parading before every one—and to her the first—his great satisfaction at the departure of Jean-Louis. He even seemed to seek every occasion to speak injuriously of him before her parents, and allowed no one to praise him in his presence. The child was not very patient, we already know, and, as Solange truly said, her head alone was dazzled; her heart was not spoiled enough to make her lose her good sense. Still further, she began to feel very uneasy on a subject which she wished to understand clearly before finally engaging herself—it was that of religion. She had felt the ground around Perdreau, and, although he was as hypocritical as the devil, he had attempted several very disagreeable jokes about the church and her ceremonies which, I must say, provoked Jeannette to such a degree, she openly showed her displeasure. Thereupon Isidore, seeing that he had gone too far, and that he must be more careful or he would lose her dowry, tried to play the part of a saint in his niche; but it was a comedy in which he was not well skilled from want of practice, and Jeannette, more and more worried and unhappy, commenced to regret that the good and wise Jeannet was no longer at her side to aid her with his advice, of which she had never before felt such urgent need.
So she, in her turn, hazarded the same request as Pierrette, and asked her father when they might expect the return of Jean-Louis.
Ragaud made her nearly the same reply as he had done to his wife, without mentioning his ideas in relation to Jeannet's supposed jealousy; and Jeannette patiently awaited him.
But the fortnight went by without any sign of the boy, and it could be easily perceived that Jeannette was becoming nervous—a kind of sickness little known in the country even by name, but which mademoiselle's example had taught Jeannette to attempt whenever things did not go on exactly as she wished. However, affairs went on precisely as those rascally Perdreaux desired. The marriage-contract was prepared, and, after an immense scrawl of big words, which Ragaud did not understand, it concluded by making the good man abandon all his personal and landed property to his daughter, only reserving for himself a moderate annuity. Ragaud was ashamed to avow that all this waste paper was entirely above his comprehension. He tried to look very wise, but proved by his questions that he was caught in a trap; for, after the reading of the knavish document, which stripped him of everything, he innocently asked if he would retain the right to manage Muiceron, and live there as master during his life.