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Noticing her daughter glowing with happiness, exhaling her soul through the pores of her face, and beautiful with the beauty of a young girl gathering the first roses of an indirect declaration, Flavie had an impulse of jealousy in her heart. She came across to Celeste and said in her ear:
If you hesitate very good; that is saying you will be wholly mine, and I will have you!" He made so rapid a movement that Flavie, terrified, rose and moved away. "Oh! my saint!" he cried, "at thy feet I fall a miracle! God is for me, surely! A flash of light has come to me an idea suddenly! Oh, thanks, my good angel, my grand Saint-Theodose! thou hast saved me!"
Flavie could not help admiring that chameleon being; one knee on the floor, his hands crossed on his breast, and his eyes raised to heaven in religious ecstasy, he recited a prayer; he was a fervent Catholic; he reverently crossed himself. It was fine; like the vision of Saint-Jerome. "Adieu!" he said, with a melancholy look and a moving tone of voice.
"Good heavens! why did I ever come here? Why did I ever take your arm?" cried Flavie. "Because it is in your destiny," he replied. "Ah! my dear, beloved Flavie," he added, again pressing her arm upon his heart, "did you expect to hear the vulgarities of love from me? We are brother and sister; that is all." And he led her towards the passage to return to the rue d'Enfer.
"Don't you pity me?" he cried to her the evening before the preparatory sale of the house, when Thuillier was to make the purchase at seventy-five thousand francs. "Think of a man like me, forced to creep like a cat, to choke down every pointed word, to swallow my own gall, and submit to your rebuffs!" "My friend! my child!" Flavie replied, undecided in mind how to take him.
People sing with a voice, if they have one; but they don't sing after hearing such a magnificent opera voice as that of Madame la comtesse. For my part, I readily excuse Celeste for not warbling to us one of her sentimental little ditties." "Then it is well worth while," said Flavie, leaving the group, "to spend so much money on expensive masters who are good for nothing."
"Don't you think, sister," said Brigitte to Madame Thuillier, "that we had better take coffee in the salon?" Madame Thuillier obediently assumed the air of mistress of the house, and rose. "Ah! you are a great wizard," said Flavie Colleville, accepting la Peyrade's arm to return to the salon. "And yet I care only to bewitch you," he answered. "I think you more enchanting than ever this evening."
Madame Colleville's elegance was on a par with that of Tullia, the leading prima-donna, with whom she was intimate; but though the Collevilles encroached on their capital and were often in difficulty by the end of the month, Flavie was never in debt. Colleville was very happy; he still loved his wife, and he made himself her best friend.
"Mademoiselle told me to take it to her room." "What for?" "Mademoiselle must be going to make a journey. She is getting her linen out of the drawers, and her gowns are on the bed." "Another piece of nonsense!" said Thuillier. "Flavie, go and see what she has in her head." "Not I," said Madame Colleville; "go yourself. In her present state of exasperation she might beat me."
"We'll see about that," said Brigitte; "after twenty years of devotion, to be treated like the lowest of the low!" And rushing to the door, which she slammed after her with violence, she went away. Thuillier was not disturbed by this exit. "Were you there, Flavie," he asked, "when the scene took place?" "No, it happened in Celeste's room. What did she do to her?"
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