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Standing at the wall one could look down into the garden, and down also upon the shining slate roof of Madame Bauche's house; and to the left might be seen the sombre, silent, snow-capped top of stern old Canigou, king of mountains among those Eastern Pyrenees. And so Madame Bauche undertook to send Marie up to the grotto, and Adolphe undertook to follow her thither.
Her eyebrows were serious in their effect, but not so serious as the pair of green spectacles which she always wore under them. It was thought by those who had analysed the subject that the great secret of Madame Bauche's power lay in her green spectacles. Her custom was to move about and through the whole establishment every day from breakfast till the period came for her to dress for dinner.
I know this now, that I was wrong ever to have loved you. I should have been to you as one of the other poor girls in the house. But, oh! how was I to help it?" To this he made no answer, and she, closing the door softly, went back to her chamber. And thus ended the first day of Adolphe Bauche's return to his own house. On the next morning the capitaine and Marie were formally betrothed.
It has been seen that the capitaine pleaded in Marie's favour when the fury of Madame Bauche's indignation broke forth; and that ultimately Marie was kept at home, and Adolphe sent away by his advice. "But Adolphe cannot always stay away," Madame Bauche had pleaded in her difficulty.
In the hall of the bath- house, suggested Madame Bauche; because, as she observed, they could walk round and round, and nobody ever went there at that time of day. But to this Adolphe objected; it would be so cold and dismal and melancholy. The capitaine thought that Mere Bauche's little parlour was the place; but La Mere herself did not like this.
The whole of that week passed much in the same way. The servants about the place spoke among themselves of Marie's perverseness, obstinacy, and ingratitude, because she would not look pleased, or answer Madame Bauche's courtesies with gratitude; but La Mere herself showed no signs of anger. Marie had yielded to her, and she required no more.
When she heard from his own mouth that he had discarded her, then she would marry the capitaine or indeed sacrifice herself in any other way that La Mere Bauche might desire. What would anything signify then? Madame Bauche's spectacles remained unmoved; but not her heart.
Madame Bauche had of late become rather nervous on the matter, thinking that they had been somewhat rash in acceding so much to Marie. It seemed to her that it was absolutely now left to the two young lovers to say whether or no they would have each other or not. Now nothing on earth could be further from Madame Bauche's intention than this.
It had been the capitaine's custom, now for some years past, to retire every evening at about seven o'clock into the sanctum sanctorum of Madame Bauche's habitation, the dark little private sitting-room in which she made out her bills and calculated her profits, and there regale himself in her presence and indeed at her expense, for the items never appeared in the bill with coffee and cognac.
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