Whilst her husband was discoursing in this fashion, Gilberte, smiling, and as much at her ease as though she were still a widow in her drawing-room at Charleville, was busy attending to the captain's requirements, passing him the toast, the butter, and whatever else he needed. She pressed him to accept a room and go to bed, but he declined this, and it was arranged that he should merely take a couple of hours' rest on a sofa, in Delaherche's study, before rejoining his regiment. Just as he was taking the sugar basin from Gilberte's hands, old Madame Delaherche, who kept her eyes fixed on the young couple, distinctly saw them press each other's finger-tips; and after that she no longer had any doubts.
Just then, however, a servant entered the room: 'There's a soldier downstairs, sir, who is asking for Monsieur Weiss's address.'
Delaherche was not at all stuck-up; with a garrulous taste for popularity he was fond of chatting with the poor and the humble. 'Weiss's address?' said he. 'That's funny--send the soldier here!'
Jean entered, so worn-out that he was fairly staggering. He started with surprise on perceiving his captain seated at table between two ladies, and drew back his hand, which he had already thrust forward in a mechanical way so that he might support himself by grasping a chair. Then he briefly answered the questions put to him by the manufacturer, who began playing the good-natured fellow, the soldier's friend. In a few words Jean explained his intimacy with Maurice, and the reason why he wished to find him.
'This is a corporal of my company,' at last said the captain by way of curtailing the explanations, and in his turn he began to question Jean, wishing to ascertain what had become of the regiment. And when Jean related that the colonel, and such men as remained with him, had just been seen crossing the town for the purpose of camping on the northern side, Gilberte again spoke over hastily, with the vivacity of a pretty woman who seldom takes the trouble to reflect: 'My uncle? Oh! why didn't he come to breakfast here? We would have had a room got ready for him. Suppose we send for him?'
But Madame Delaherche, senior, waved her hand with a gesture of sovereign authority. The blood of the old burgesses of the frontier cities coursed in her veins; she was endowed with all the masculine virtues of rigid patriotism; and she only broke her uncompromising silence to exclaim: 'Let Monsieur de Vineuil remain where he is; he is doing his duty.'