“Good evening, Monsieur Froment.”

Valentine took hold of them, sat them on her lap, and half stifled them with caresses.  She seemed to adore them, but as soon as she had sat them down again she forgot all about them.

“So you are going out again, mamma?” asked the little boy.

“Why, yes, my darling.  Papas and mammas, you know, have their affairs to see to.”

“So we shall have dinner all alone, mamma?”

Valentine did not answer, but turned towards the maid, who was waiting for orders;—­

“You are not to leave them for a moment, Celeste—­you hear?  And, above all things, they are not to go into the kitchen.  I can never come home without finding them in the kitchen.  It is exasperating.  Let them have their dinner at seven, and put them to bed at nine.  And see that they go to sleep.”

The big girl with the equine head listened with an air of respectful obedience, while her faint smile expressed the cunning of a Norman peasant who had been five years in Paris already and was hardened to service, and well knew what was done with children when the master and mistress were absent.

“Madame,” she said in a simple way, “Mademoiselle Lucie is poorly.  She has been sick again.”

“What? sick again!” cried the father in a fury.  “I am always hearing of that!  They are always being sick!  And it always happens when we are going out!  It is very disagreeable, my dear; you might see to it; you ought not to let our children have papier-mache stomachs!”

The mother made an angry gesture, as if to say that she could not help it.  As a matter of fact, the children were often poorly.  They had experienced every childish ailment, they were always catching cold or getting feverish.  And they preserved the mute, moody, and somewhat anxious demeanor of children who are abandoned to the care of servants.

“Is it true you were poorly, my little Lucie?” asked Valentine, stooping down to the child.  “You aren’t poorly now, are you?  No, no, it’s nothing, nothing at all.  Kiss me, my pet; bid papa good night very prettily, so that he may not feel worried in leaving you.”

She rose up, already tranquillized and gay again; and, noticing that Mathieu was looking at her, she exclaimed: 

“Ah! these little folks give one a deal of worry.  But one loves them dearly all the same, though, so far as there is happiness in life, it would perhaps be better for them never to have been born.  However, my duty to the country is done.  Each wife ought to have a boy and a girl as I have.”

Thereupon Mathieu, seeing that she was jesting, ventured to say with a laugh: 

“Well, that isn’t the opinion of your medical man, Dr. Boutan.  He declares that to make the country prosperous every married couple ought to have four children.”

“Four children!  He’s mad!” cried Seguin.  And again with the greatest freedom of language he brought forward his pet theories.  There was a world of meaning in his wife’s laughter while Celeste stood there unmoved and the children listened without understanding.  But at last Santerre led the Seguins away.  It was only in the hall that Mathieu obtained from his landlord a promise that he would write to the plumber at Janville and that the roof of the pavilion should be entirely renovated, since the rain came into the bedrooms.