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Provincial life and the rather careless style of dress into which, for the last ten years, Severine had allowed herself to fall, gave a somewhat common air to that noble profile and those beautiful features; increasing plumpness was destroying the outlines of a figure magnificently fine during the first twelve years of her married life.
See," he began checking off on his fingers, "there is Severine, and Alphosen, and Josephine, and Hectorine, and Louise, and Malvina why, I could love any of them girls! Why don't you get after them? Are you stuck up, Emil, or is anything the matter with you? I never did know a boy twenty-two years old before that didn't have no girl. You wanna be a priest, maybe? Not-a for me!" Amedee swaggered.
My father has finished dinner and I couldn't eat mine in peace without knowing what he thinks and whether we ought to go to Gondreville." "Go, go, my dear. I'll wait," said Phileas, using the "thee" and "thou." "Good heavens!" cried Severine with a significant gesture of her shoulders. "Shall I never break you of that habit of tutoying me?"
But Severine redeemed these growing imperfections with a sovereign, superb, imperious glance, and a certain haughty carriage of her head. Her hair, still black and thick and long, was raised high upon her head, giving her a youthful look. Her shoulders and bosom were snowy, but they now rose puffily in a manner to obstruct the free movement of the neck, which had grown too short.
Madame Beauvisage turned round abruptly and cast a look upon her daughter which made the girl blush. "Cecile, who told you to dress yourself in that way?" she demanded. "Are we not going to-night to Madame Marion's? I dressed myself now to see if my new gown fitted me." "Cecile! Cecile!" exclaimed Severine, "why do you try to deceive your mother?
The feeling of Severine for this nullity of a man never went beyond the protecting pity of a mother for her child. She disguised the harshness of the words she was frequently obliged to say to him by a joking manner. Cecile's entrance now put an end to her father's embarrassment, and he cried out heartily: "Hey! how fine we are!"
People said that Severine was so jealous of him that she prevented him from going out in the evening, while in point of fact Phileas was bathing the roses and lilies of his skin in happy slumber. Beauvisage, who lived according to his tastes, pampered by his wife, well served by his two servants, cajoled by his daughter, called himself the happiest man in Arcis, and really was so.
"In 1832 I let it for seven years to an Englishman for twenty-four thousand francs a year, a pretty stroke of business; for it only cost me three hundred and twenty-five thousand francs, of which I thus recover nearly two hundred thousand. The lease ends in July of this year." Severine kissed her father on the forehead and on both cheeks.
Like many women she had passed thirty with a husband of her choice, two children, and an establishment entirely of her making before she became aware that she had missed something on the way, a something that other women had. She had seen Severine Wilson go white when a certain man entered the room then light brilliantly with joy when his eyes sought her.... That must be worth having, too! ...
"I never do it before company not since 1817," said Phileas. "You do it constantly before the servants and your daughter." "As you will, Severine," replied Beauvisage sadly. "Above all, don't say a word to Cecile about this resolution of the electors," added Madame Beauvisage, who was looking in the glass to arrange her shawl. "Shall I go with you to your father's?" asked Phileas.
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