this contemptible scamp, is after all the source of all good, for all the good of life for me is in your love; nevertheless if ever he comes within reach of my whip, he will not have a very pleasant time of it.”
“It seems then,” muttered Thibault, swearing to himself, “that my wish has again turned to the advantage of someone else! Ah! my friend, black wolf, I have still something to learn, but, confound it all! I will in future think so well over my wishes before expressing them that the pupil will become master ... but to whom does that voice, that I seem to know, belong?” Thibault continued, trying to recall it, “for the voice is familiar to me, of that I am certain!”
“You would be even more incensed against him, poor wretch, if I were to tell you something.”
“And what is that, my love?”
“Well, that good-for-nothing fellow, as you call him, is making love to me.”
“Phew!”
“That is so, my lord,” said Madame Suzanne, laughing.
“What! that boor, that low rascal! Where is he? Where does he hide himself? By Beelzebub! I’ll throw him to my dogs to eat!”
And then, all at once, Thibault recognised his man. “Ah! my lord Baron,” he muttered, “it’s you, is it?”
“Pray do not trouble yourself about it, my lord,” said Madame Suzanne, laying her two hands on her lover’s shoulders, and obliging him to sit down again, “your lordship is the only person whom I love, and even were it not so, a man with a lock of red hair right in the middle of his forehead is not the one to whom I should give away my heart.” And as the recollection of this lock of hair, which had made her laugh so at dinner, came back to her, she again gave way to her amusement.
A violent feeling of anger towards the Bailiff’s wife took possession of Thibault.
“Ah! traitress!” he exclaimed to himself, “what would I not give for your husband, your good, upright husband, to walk in at this moment and surprise you.”
Scarcely was the wish uttered, when the door of communication between Suzanne’s room and that of Monsieur Magloire was thrown wide open, and in walked her husband with an enormous night-cap on his head, which made him look nearly five feet high, and holding a lighted candle in his hand.
“Ah! ah!” muttered Thibault. “Well done! It’s my turn to laugh now, Madame Magloire.”
CHAPTER XIII
WHERE IT IS DEMONSTRATED THAT A WOMAN NEVER SPEAKS MORE ELOQUENTLY THAN WHEN SHE HOLDS HER TONGUE.
As Thibault was talking to himself he did not catch the few hurried words which Suzanne whispered to the Baron; and all he saw was that she appeared to totter, and then fell back into her lover’s arms, as if in a dead faint.
The Bailiff stopped short as he caught sight of this curious group, lit up by his candle. He was facing Thibault, and the latter endeavoured to read in Monsieur Magloire’s face what was passing in his mind.
But the Bailiff’s jovial physiognomy was not made by nature to express any strong emotion, and Thibault could detect nothing in it but a benevolent astonishment on the part of the amiable husband.
The Baron, also, evidently detected nothing more, for with a coolness and ease of manner, which produced on Thibault a surprise beyond expression, he turned to the Bailiff, and asked:
“Well, friend Magloire, and how do you carry your wine this evening?”
“Why, is it you, my lord?” replied the Bailiff opening his fat little eyes.
“Ah! pray excuse me, and believe me, had I known I was to have the honour of seeing you here, I should not have allowed myself to appear in such an unsuitable costume.”
“Pooh-pooh! nonsense!”
“Yes, indeed, my lord; you must permit me to go and make a little toilette.”
“No ceremony, I pray!” rejoined the Baron. “After curfew, one is at least free to receive one’s friends in what costume one likes. Besides, my dear friend, there is something which requires more immediate attention.”
“What is that, my lord?”
“To restore Madame Magloire to her senses, who, you see, has fainted in my arms.”
“Fainted! Suzanne fainted! Ah! my God!” cried the little man, putting down his candle on the chimney-piece, “how ever did such a misfortune happen?”
“Wait, wait, Monsieur Magloire!” said my lord, “we must first get your wife into a more comfortable position in an armchair; nothing annoys women so much as not to be at their ease when they are unfortunate enough to faint.”
“You are right, my lord; let us first put her in the armchair.... Oh Suzanne! poor Suzanne! How can such a thing as this have happened?”
“I pray you at least, my dear fellow, not to think any ill of me at finding me in your house at such a time of night!”
“Far from it, my lord,” replied the Bailiff, “the friendship with which you honour us, and the virtue of Madame Magloire are sufficient guarantees for me to be glad at any hour to have my house honoured by your presence.”
“Triple dyed idiot!” murmured the shoe-maker, “unless I ought rather to call him a doubly clever dissembler.... No matter which, however! we have yet to see how my lord is going to get out of it.”
“Nevertheless,” continued Maître Magloire, dipping a handkerchief into some aromatic water, and bathing his wife’s temples with it, “nevertheless, I am curious to know how my poor wife can have received such a shock.”
“It’s a simple affair enough, as I will explain, my dear fellow. I was returning from dining with my friend, de Vivières, and passing through Erneville on my way to Vez, I caught sight of an open window, and a woman inside making signals of distress.”
“Ah! my God!”
“That is what I exclaimed, when I realised that the window belonged to your house; and can it be my friend the Bailiff’s wife, I thought, who is in danger and in need of help?”
“You are good indeed, my lord,” said the Bailiff quite overcome. “I trust it was nothing of the sort.”
“On the contrary, my dear man.”
“How! on the contrary?”
“Yes, as you will see.”
“You make me shudder, my lord! And do you mean that my wife was in need of help and did not call me?”
“It had been her first thought to call you, but she abstained from doing so, for, and here you see her delicacy of feeling, she was afraid that if you came, your precious life might be endangered.”
The Bailiff turned
