The three domino players were sitting at the same table which they had occupied before dinner, totally absorbed in their game, and Caravan went up to them, in search of pity, but as none of them appeared to notice him he made up his mind to speak.

“A great misfortune has happened to me since I was here,” he said.

All three slightly raised their heads at the same instant, but keeping their eyes fixed on the pieces which they held in their hands.

“What do you say?”

“My mother has just died”; whereupon one of them said: 

“Oh! the devil,” with that false air of sorrow which indifferent people assume.  Another, who could not find anything to say, emitted a sort of sympathetic whistle, shaking his head at the same time, and the third turned to the game again, as if he were saying to himself:  “Is that all!”

Caravan had expected some of these expressions that are said to “come from the heart,” and when he saw how his news was received, he left the table, indignant at their calmness at their friend’s sorrow, although this sorrow had stupefied him so that he scarcely felt it any longer.  When he got home his wife was waiting for him in her nightgown, and sitting in a low chair by the open window, still thinking of the inheritance.

“Undress yourself,” she said; “we can go on talking.”

He raised his head, and looking at the ceiling, said: 

“But—­there is nobody upstairs.”

“I beg your pardon, Rosalie is with her, and you can go and take her place at three o’clock in the morning, when you have had some sleep.”

He only partially undressed, however, so as to be ready for anything that might happen, and after tying a silk handkerchief round his head, he lay down to rest, and for some time neither of them spoke.  Madame Caravan was thinking.

Her nightcap was adorned with a red bow, and was pushed rather to one side, as was the way with all the caps she wore, and presently she turned towards him and said: 

“Do you know whether your mother made a will?”

He hesitated for a moment, and then replied: 

“I—­I do not think so.  No, I am sure that she did not.”

His wife looked at him, and she said, in a law, angry tone: 

“I call that infamous; here we have been wearing ourselves out for ten years in looking after her, and have boarded and lodged her!  Your sister would not have done so much for her, nor I either, if I had known how I was to be rewarded!  Yes, it is a disgrace to her memory!  I dare say that you will tell me that she paid us, but one cannot pay one’s children in ready money for what they do; that obligation is recognized after death; at any rate, that is how honorable people act.  So I have had all my worry and trouble for nothing!  Oh, that is nice! that is very nice!”

Poor Caravan, who was almost distracted, kept on repeating: 

“My dear, my dear, please, please be quiet.”