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Updated: May 1, 2025
"The skin, madame?" inquired the Abbe Touvent, with that gentle and cackling humour in which the ordained of any Church may indulge after a good dinner. The Abbe Touvent had, as a matter of fact, been Madame de Chantonnay's most patient listener through the months of suspense that followed Loo Barebone's sudden disappearance.
It was, in fact, Madame de Chantonnay's Thursday evening to which were bidden such friends as enjoyed for the moment her fickle good graces. The Abbe Touvent was, so to speak, a permanent subscriber to these favours. The Abbe bustled about, drawing cards and tables nearer to the lamps, away from the draught of the door, not too near the open wood fire.
It was almost the time of the vintage, and the country roads were dotted with the shambling figures of those knights of industry who seem to spring from the hedgerows at harvest-time in any country in the world, when the Abbe Touvent sought out Marie in her cottage at the gates of the chateau. "A la cave," answered the lady's voice. "In the cellar do you not know that it is Monday and I wash?"
A bed such as peasants sleep on; a few chairs; a dressing-table tottering against the window-breast, and modestly screened in one corner, the diminutive washing-stand still used in southern France. For Gemosac had been sacked and the furniture built up into a bonfire when Marie was a little child and the Abbe Touvent a fat-faced timorous boy at the Seminary of Saintes.
"And in the mean time," purred the voice of the Abbe Touvent, "for the digestion, Monsieur le Marquis for the digestion." For it was one of the features of Madame de Chantonnay's Thursdays that no servants were allowed in the room; but the guests waited on each other.
The whole sector had been the scene of a fierce battle in June 1915, for the possession of Touvent Farm and the outskirts of Serre, and was everywhere cut up by old disused trenches, French and German, and shell holes, and was still littered with bones and skulls.
"And in the mean time," purred the voice of the Abbe Touvent, "for the digestion, Monsieur le Marquis for the digestion." For it was one of the features of Madame de Chantonnay's Thursdays that no servants were allowed in the room; but the guests waited on each other.
The card tables had lost their attraction; and, although many parties were formed, and the cards were dealt, the players fell to talking across the ungathered tricks, and even the Abbe Touvent was caught tripping in the matter of a point.
It was, in fact, Madame de Chantonnay's Thursday evening to which were bidden such friends as enjoyed for the moment her fickle good graces. The Abbe Touvent was, so to speak, a permanent subscriber to these favours. The Abbe bustled about, drawing cards and tables nearer to the lamps, away from the draught of the door, not too near the open wood fire.
"I expected you. Ask the Abbe Touvent. He will tell you, gentlemen, that I expected you." As Barebone turned away to speak to the Marquis and others, who were pressing forward to greet him, it became apparent that that mantle of imperturbability, which millions made in trade can never buy, had fallen upon his shoulders, too.
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