Part 3 (2/2)

”I went to the city that morning myself because Monsieur le Baron had said the night before that he should hunt to-day, and that the groom was to help Monsieur le Baron drive a wild boar out of the Corne woods.

I reached Remiremont; I went to the butcher's; I purchased five kilogrammes of dressed goods--”

”Of dressed goods at the butcher's!” exclaimed Madame de Bergenheim.

”I would say ten pounds of what uneducated people call pork,” said Rousselet, p.r.o.nouncing this last word in a strangled voice.

”Pa.s.s over these details,” said Mademoiselle de Corandeuil. ”You went to the post-office.”

”I went to the post-office, where I put in letters for Mademoiselle, Madame, Monsieur le Baron, and one from Mademoiselle Aline for Monsieur d'Artigues.”

”Aline writing to her cousin! Did you know that?” said the old aunt, turning quickly toward her niece.

”Certainly; they correspond regularly,” replied Clemence with a smile which seemed to say that she saw no harm in it.

The old maid shook her head and protruded her under lip, as much as to say: We will attend to this another time.

Madame de Bergenheim, who was out of patience at this questioning, began to speak in a quick tone which was a contrast to her aunt's solemn slowness.

”Rousselet,” said she, ”when you took the newspapers out of the office, did you notice whether the wrappers were intact, or whether they had been opened?”

The good man half concealed his face in his cravat at this precise questioning, and it was with embarra.s.sment that he replied, after a moment's hesitation:

”Certainly, Madame--as to the wrappers--I do not accuse the postmaster--”

”If the journals were sealed when you received them, you are the only one who could have opened them.”

Rousselet straightened himself up to his full height, and, giving to his nut-cracker face the most dignified look possible, he said in a solemn tone:

”With due deference to you, Madame, Leonard Rousselet is well known.

Fifty-seven years old on Saint-Hubert's day, I am incapable of opening newspapers. When they have been read at the chateau and they send me with them to the cure, I do not say--perhaps on my way--it is a recreation--and then the cure is Jean Bartou, son of Joseph Bartou, the tilemaker. But to read the newspaper before my masters have done so!

Never! Leonard Rousselet is an old man incapable of such baseness.

Baptized when a child; fifty-seven years on Saint-Hubert's day.”

”When you speak of your pastor, do so in a more becoming manner,”

interrupted Mademoiselle de Colrandeuil, although she herself in private did not speak of the plebeian priest in very respectful terms. But if Joseph Bartou's son was always the son of Joseph Bartou to her, she meant that he should be Monsieur le Cure to the peasants.

Madame de Bergenheim had not been much affected by Pere Rousselet's harangue, and shook her head impatiently, saying in an imperative tone:

”I am certain that the newspapers have been opened by you, or by some person to whom you have given them, and I wish to know at once by whom.”

Rousselet dropped his pose of a Roman senator; pa.s.sing his hand behind his ears, a familiar gesture with people when in embarra.s.sing positions, he continued less emphatically:

”I stopped on my way back at La Fauconnerie, at the 'Femme-sans-Tete Inn'.”

”And what were you doing in a tavern?” interrupted Mademoiselle de Corandeuil severely. ”You know it is not intended that the servants in this house should frequent taverns and such low places, which are not respectable and corrupt the morals of the lower cla.s.ses.”

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