“_Ça y est?_” asked the Tante, meaning--were the infants at last couched?
“_Ça y est_” said the mother, with triumph, with relief, and yet also with a little regret.
There was a nurse, but in practice she was only an under-nurse; the head-nurse was the mother.
“_Eh bien, mon petit Bennett_,” the mother began, in a new tone, as if to indicate that she was no longer a mother, but a Parisienne, frivolous and challenging, “what there that is new?”
“He is there,” said the Tante, interrupting.
We heard the noise of the front-door, and by a common instinct we all rose and went into the hall.
The master of the home arrived. He entered like a gust of wind, and Marthe, the thin old parlourmaid, who had evidently been lying in wait for him, started back in alarm, but alarm half-simulated. My host, about the same age as his wife, was a doctor, specialising in the diseases of women and children, and he had his cabinet on the ground-floor of the same house. He was late, he was impatient to regain his hearth, he was proud of his industry; and the simple, instinctive joy of life sparkled in his eye.
“Marie,” he cried to his wife. “I love thee!” And kissed her furiously on both cheeks.
“It is well,” she responded, calmly smiling, with a sort of flirtatious condescension.
“I tell thee I love thee!” he insisted, with his hands on her shoulders. “Tell me that thou lovest me!”
“It is very well!” he said, and swinging round to Marthe, giving her his hat. “Marthe, I love you.” And he caught her a smack on the shoulder.
“Monsieur hurts me,” the spinster protested.
“Go then! Go then!” said the Tante, as the beloved nephew directed his assault upon her in turn. She was grimly proud of him. He flattered her eye, for, even at his loosest, he had a professional distinction of deportment which her long-deceased husband, a wholesale tradesman, had probably lacked.
“Well, my old one,” the host grasped my hand once more, “you cannot figure to yourself how it gives me pleasure to have you here!” His voice was rich with emotion.
This man had the genius of friendship in a very high degree. His delight in the society of his friends was so intense and so candid that only the most inordinately conceited among them could have failed to be aware of an uncomfortable grave sense of unworthiness, could have failed to say to themselves fearfully: “He will find me out one day!”