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"Oh, no, I think not. The room one lives in the most is the room for any one's money." She looked at him in a puzzled way. Too many sensations were being born in her all at once; but she did recognise that he was not trying to subtract anything from the pomp of the Lavilettes. He belonged to a world that she did not know and yet he was so perfectly at home with her, so idly easygoing.
That night, while gaiety and feasting went on at the Lavilettes', there was another sort of feasting under way at the house of Shangois, the notary. On one side of a tiny fire in the chimney, over which hung a little black kettle, sat Shangois and Vanne Castine.
They talked and blustered, yet they did not interfere with the two soldiers who kept guard at the home of the Regimental Surgeon. It was expected that the Cure would speak of the Rebellion from the altar this morning. It was also rumoured that he would have something to say about the Lavilettes; and Christine had insisted upon going.
Probably, in spite of everything, Monsieur Lavilette and his family would have succeeded better socially had it not been for one or two unpopular lawsuits brought by the Lavilettes against two neighbours, small farmers, one of whom was clearly in the wrong, and the other as clearly in the right.
Gatineau the miller, and Baby the keeper of the bridge, gave their own reasons for the renewed progress of the Lavilettes. They met in conference at the mill on the eve of the marriage of Sophie Lavilette to Magon Farcinelle, farrier, farmer and member of the provincial legislature, whose house lay behind the piece of maple wood, a mile or so to the right of the Lavilettes' farmhouse.
Feeling was bitter against him, and against the Lavilettes also, now that the patriots were defeated. It had gone about that he had warned the Governor. The habitants, in their blind way, blamed him for the consequences of their own misdoing. They blamed Nicolas Lavilette. They blamed the Lavilettes for their friend ship with Ferrol.
The Casimbaults and the wife of the old seigneur made no friends of the Lavilettes, but the old seigneur kept up a formal habit of calling twice a year at the Lavilettes' big farmhouse, which, in spite of all misfortune, grew bigger as the years went on.
This was disconcerting to Madame Lavilette, who had hoped that out of Farcinelle's official position she might reap some praise and pence of ambition. Meanwhile, Ferrol became more and more a cherished and important figure in the Manor Casimbault, where the Lavilettes had made their home soon after the wedding.
Overcome by his exertions, he wheezed so tremendously that great billows of excitement raised his waistcoat, and a perspiration broke out upon his mealy face, making a paste which the sun, through the open doorway, immediately began to bake into a crust. "Pah, the airs they have always had, those Lavilettes!" said Baby.
An hour later he stood among a few companies of British soldiers in front of the massive stone store-house of the Lavilettes' abandoned farmhouse, with its thick shuttered windows and its solid oak doors. It was too late to attempt the fugitive's escape, save by strategy. Over half an hour Nic had kept them at bay.
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