"My faith, a very pretty boy."

"Seventeen years old, soon," added Jacques.

"That is a fine age for us," added the bailiff, exchanging an intelligent glance with Jacques, who said rudely to his son:

"Good evening."

Marie and Frederick retired, leaving Jacques Bastien and his comrade Bridou at the table.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

When Madame Bastien and Frederick, coming out of the dining-room, pa.s.sed by the library, they saw David there, standing in the door watching for them.

Marie extended her hand to him cordially, and said, making allusion to the two outrages to which the preceptor had so patiently submitted:

"Can you still have the same devotion to us?"

A loud noise of moving chairs and bursts of laughter from the dining-room informed the young woman that her husband and the bailiff were rising from the table. She hastened to her apartment with Frederick, after having said to David, with a look of despair:

"To-morrow morning, M. David. I am now in unspeakable agony."

"To-morrow, my friend," said Frederick, in his turn, to David, as he pa.s.sed him.

Then Marie and her son entered their apartment, while David ascended to the garret chamber he was to share with Andre.

Scarcely had he entered his mother's chamber when Frederick threw himself in his mother's arms and cried with bitterness:

"Oh, mother! we were so happy before the arrival of--"

"Not a word more, my child; you are speaking of your father,"

interrupted Marie. "Embrace me more tenderly than ever; you have need of it, and so have I; but no recriminations of your father."

"My G.o.d! mother, you did not hear what he said to M. Bridou?"

"When your father said, 'Frederick will soon be seventeen?'"

"Yes, and that man said to my father, 'It is a good age for us.'"

"I, as well as you, my child, heard his words."

"'A good age for us,'--what does he mean by that, mother?"

"I do not know," replied the young woman, hoping to calm and rea.s.sure her son. "Perhaps we attach too much to these words,--more than they deserve."

After a short silence, Frederick said to Marie, in an altered voice:

"Listen to me, mother. Since you desire it, I shall always have that respect for my father which I owe to him, but I tell you frankly, understand me,--if my father thinks ever of separating me from you and M. David--"

"Frederick!" cried the young woman, alarmed at the desperate resolution she read in her son's countenance, "why suppose what is impossible--to separate us! to take you out of the hands of M. David, and that, too, at a time when-- But no, I repeat, your father has too much reason, too much good sense, to conceive such an idea."

"May Heaven hear you, mother, but I swear to you, and you know my will is firm, that no human power shall separate me from you and M. David, and that I will boldly say to my father. Let him respect our affection, our indissoluble ties, and I will bless him; but if he dares to put his hand on our happiness--"

"My son!"

"Oh, mother! our happiness, it is your life, and your life I will defend against my father himself, you understand."

"My G.o.d! my G.o.d! Frederick, I beseech you!"

"Oh, let him take care! let him take care! two or three times this evening my blood revolted against his words."

"Stop, Frederick, do not speak so; you will make me insane. Why, then, oh, my G.o.d! will you predict such painful, or rather, such impossible things! You only terrify yourself and render yourself desperate."

"Very well, mother, we will wait; but believe me, the frightful calmness of my father when he learned of the sale of the silver hides something.

We expected to see him burst forth into a pa.s.sion, but he remained impa.s.sible, he became pale. I never saw him so pale, mother," said Frederick, embracing his mother with an expression of tenderness and alarm. "Mother, I am chilled to the heart, some danger threatens us."

"Frederick," replied the young woman, with a tone of agonising reproach, "you frighten me terribly, and after all, your father will act according to his own will."

"And I also, mother, I will have mine."

"But why suppose your father has intentions which he has not and cannot have? Believe me, my child, in spite of his roughness, he loves you; why should he wish to grieve you? Why separate us and ruin the most beautiful, and the most a.s.sured hopes that a mother ever had for the future of her son? Wait,--I am sure that our friend M. David will say the same thing that I say to you. Come, calm yourself, take courage, we will have perhaps to pa.s.s through some disagreeable experiences, but we have already endured so much that is cruel, we cannot have much more to suffer."

Frederick shook his head sadly, embraced his mother with more than usual tenderness, and entered his room.

Madame Bastien rang for Marguerite.

The old servant soon appeared.

"Marguerite," said the young woman to her, "is M. Bastien still at table?"

"Unfortunately he is, madame."

"Unfortunately?"

"Bless me, I have never seen monsieur with such a wicked face; he drinks--he drinks until it is frightful, and in spite of it all he is pale. He has just asked me for a bottle of brandy and--"

"That is sufficient, Marguerite," said Marie, interrupting her servant; "have you prepared a bed in Andre's chamber for M. David?"

"Yes, madame, M. David has just gone up there, but old Andre says he would rather sleep in the stable than dare stay in the same chamber with M. David. Besides, Andre will hardly have time to go to sleep to-night."

"Why so?"

"Monsieur has ordered Andre to hitch the horse at three o'clock in the morning."

"What! M. Bastien is going away in the middle of the night?"