“You people are far too good to me,” he remarked one day to Bigourdin. “It is a large-hearted country.”
“Did I not say, my friend,” replied Bigourdin, “that Périgord would take you to her bosom?”
And then there was Félise, who in her capacity of task-mistress called him peremptorily “Martin”; but out of official hours nearly always prefixed the “Monsieur.” She created an atmosphere of grace around the plates and dishes, her encouraging word sang for long afterwards in his ears. With a tact only to be found in democratic France she combined the authority of the superior with the intellectual inferior’s respect. Apparently she concerned herself little about his change of profession. Her father, the all-wise and all-perfect, had ordained it; her uncle, wise and perfect, had acquiesced; Martin, peculiarly wise and almost perfect, had accepted it with enthusiasm. Who was she to question the doings of inscrutable men?
They met perforce more often than during his guesthood, and, their common interests being multiplied, their relations became more familiar. They had reached now the period of the year’s stress, that of the great _foie gras_ making when fatted geese were slain and the masses of swollen liver were extracted and the huge baskets of black warty truffles were brought in from the beech forests where they had been hunted for by pigs and dogs. Martin, like every one else in the household, devoted all his spare moments to helping in the steaming kitchen supervised by a special chef, and in the long, clean-smelling work-room where rows of white-aproned girls prepared and packed the delectable compound. Here Bigourdin presided in brow-knit majesty and Félise bustled a smiling second in command.
“It is well to learn everything,” she said to Martin. “Who knows when you may be glad to have been taught how to make _pâté de foie gras_?”
So Martin, though such a course was not contemplated in his agreement with the Hôtel des Grottes, received much instruction from her in the delicate craft, which was very pleasant indeed. And the girls looked on at the lessons after the way of their kind and exchanged glances one with another, and every one, save perhaps Bigourdin, who had not yet recovered his serenity overclouded by Corinna’s rejection of his suit, was exceedingly contented.
