At that moment Risler has taken the tiny creature in his arms, the whole fascinating bundle of white draperies and light ribbons, and is trying to make it laugh and crow with baby-talk and gestures worthy of a grandfather.  How old he looks, poor man!  His tall body, which he contorts for the child’s amusement, his hoarse voice, which becomes a low growl when he tries to soften it, are absurd and ridiculous.

Above, the wife taps the floor with her foot and mutters between her teeth: 

“The idiot!”

At last, weary of waiting, she sends a servant to tell Monsieur that breakfast is served; but the game is so far advanced that Monsieur does not see how he can go away, how he can interrupt these explosions of laughter and little bird-like cries.  He succeeds at last, however, in giving the child back to its nurse, and enters the hall, laughing heartily.  He is laughing still when he enters the dining-room; but a glance from his wife stops him short.

Sidonie is seated at table before the chafing-dish, already filled.  Her martyr-like attitude suggests a determination to be cross.

“Oh! there you are.  It’s very lucky!”

Risler took his seat, a little ashamed.

“What would you have, my love?  That child is so—­”

“I have asked you before now not to speak to me in that way.  It isn’t good form.”

“What, not when we’re alone?”

“Bah! you will never learn to adapt yourself to our new fortune.  And what is the result?  No one in this place treats me with any respect.  Pere Achille hardly touches his hat to me when I pass his lodge.  To be sure, I’m not a Fromont, and I haven’t a carriage.”

“Come, come, little one, you know perfectly well that you can use Madame Chorche’s coupe.  She always says it is at our disposal.”

“How many times must I tell you that I don’t choose to be under any obligation to that woman?”

“O Sidonie”

“Oh! yes, I know, it’s all understood.  Madame Fromont is the good Lord himself.  Every one is forbidden to touch her.  And I must make up my mind to be a nobody in my own house, to allow myself to be humiliated, trampled under foot.”

“Come, come, little one—­”

Poor Risler tries to interpose, to say a word in favor of his dear Madame “Chorche.”  But he has no tact.  This is the worst possible method of effecting a reconciliation; and Sidonie at once bursts forth: 

“I tell you that that woman, with all her calm airs, is proud and spiteful.  In the first place, she detests me, I know that.  So long as I was poor little Sidonie and she could toss me her broken dolls and old clothes, it was all right, but now that I am my own mistress as well as she, it vexes her and humiliates her.  Madame gives me advice with a lofty air, and criticises what I do.  I did wrong to have a maid.  Of course!  Wasn’t I in the habit of waiting on myself?  She never loses a chance to wound me.  When I call on her