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And Delobelle continued to grow fat in the same degree that his "sainted wife" grew thin. At the very moment when some one knocked hurriedly at his door he had just discovered a fragrant soup 'au fromage', which had been kept hot in the ashes on the hearth.
Each divined for whom the other was waiting, and they did not try to deceive each other. "Isn't my son-in-law here?" asked M. Chebe, eying the documents spread over the table, and emphasizing the words "my son-in-law," to indicate that Risler belonged to him and to nobody else. "I am waiting for him," Delobelle replied, gathering up his papers.
For he didn't say good-by to you two either, did he? And yet, only a month ago, he was always in our rooms, without any remonstrance from us." Mamma Delobelle uttered an exclamation of genuine surprise and grief. Desiree, on the contrary, did not say a word or make a motion. She was always the same little iceberg. Oh! wretched mother, turn your eyes upon your daughter.
They would all set off together, the Chebes, the Rislers, and the illustrious Delobelle. Only Desiree and her mother never were of the party. The poor, crippled child, ashamed of her deformity, never would stir from her chair, and Mamma Delobelle stayed behind to keep her company.
The river was a long distance away. She would be very tired. However, there was no other way than that. "I am going to bed, my child; are you going to sit up any longer?" With her eyes on her work, "my child" replied that she was. She wished to finish her dozen. "Good-night, then," said Mamma Delobelle, her enfeebled sight being unable to endure the light longer.
Delobelle mentioned it to Risler, at first very vaguely, in a wholly hypothetical form "There would be a good chance to make a fine stroke." Risler listened with his usual phlegm, saying, "Indeed, it would be a good thing for you."
The Delobelles never receive calls. The mother, who has turned her head, thinks at first that some one has come from the shop to get the week's work. "My husband has just gone to your place, Monsieur. We have nothing here. Monsieur Delobelle has taken everything." The man comes forward without speaking, and as he approaches the window his features can be distinguished.
A childlike shyness, and the Germanisms of speech which he never had laid aside in his life of absorbing toil, embarrassed him much in giving expression to his ideas. Moreover, his friends overawed him. They had in respect to him the tremendous superiority of the man who does nothing over the man who works; and M. Chebe, less generous than Delobelle, did not hesitate to make him feel it.
Father has gone to take back the work; but he will surely come home to dinner." He will surely come home to dinner! The good woman said it with a certain pride. In fact, since the failure of his managerial scheme, the illustrious Delobelle no longer took his meals abroad, even on the evenings when he went to collect the weekly earnings.
Mamma Delobelle was lying back in her chair in the careless attitude of long-continued fatigue, heeded at last; and all the scars, the ugly sabre cuts with which age and suffering brand the faces of the old, manifested themselves, ineffaceable and pitiful to see, in the relaxation of slumber.
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