Boule de Suif only had not come down.  She appeared.

She seemed to be rather confused, bashful; shyly, she walked up to her companions who, all with the same movement, turned away from her as if they had not seen her.  The Count, dignified, took his wife by the arm and removed her from this impure contact.

The girl stood still, stupefied; then picking up all her courage she accosted the manufacturer’s wife with a—­“Good morning, Madame!”—­humbly muttered.  The other answered only with a short and impertinent nod accompanied by a look of outraged virtue.  Everybody seemed to be busy and kept away from her as if she were carrying some infectious germs in her skirt.  Then they rushed up to the coach, in which she entered last, without being helped by anyone, and silently she took the seat she had occupied during the final part of the journey.

They feigned not to see her, not to know her; but Mme. Loiseau, looking at her indignantly from a distance, told her husband half aloud:—­“Fortunately I am not sitting next to her.”—­

The heavy coach started and the journey was resumed.

First nobody spoke.  Boule de Suif did not dare raise her eyes.  At the same time she felt indignant at all her companions, and humiliated for having yielded to the Prussian Officer into whose arms she had been hypocritically forced by them.

But the Countess, turning to Madame Carre-Lamadon, broke soon this painful silence.

—­“I think you knew Madame d’Estrelles.”

—­“Yes, she is one of my friends.”

—­“What a charming woman!”

—­“Fascinating!  Really a select nature, besides highly educated, and an artist to the tips of her fingers.  She sings delightfully and paints to perfection.”

The manufacturer was talking with the Count, and in the middle of the clatter of the window-panes, one could catch here and there a word:—­“Coupon—­maturity—­premium—­term—­”

Loiseau, who had stolen from the inn the old pack of cards, greasy after five years friction on dirty tables, started a game of “bezigue” with his wife.

The good sisters took from their belts the long rosaries, made simultaneously the sign of the cross and suddenly their lips began to move rapidly, becoming more and more accelerated, precipitating their vague murmur as if in a race of “orisons;” and now and then they kissed a medal, crossed themselves again, and resumed their swift and continuous mutterings.

Cornudet sat still and deep in thoughts.  After they had traveled for three hours, Loiseau picked up his cards and said:—­“I am hungry.”  Then his wife reached out for a package from which she drew a piece of cold veal.  She cut it carefully in thin and neat slices and both began to eat.

—­“Why shouldn’t we do the same?”—­said the Countess.  Upon general consent, she unpacked the provisions prepared for the two couples.  In one of those oval dishes, the cover of which bears a china hare, to show that a hare pie lies inside, there were exquisite delicatessen, the white streams of lard crossing the brown meat of the game, mixed with other fine chopped meats.  A handsome piece of Swiss-cheese, wrapped in a newspaper, had taken on its fat surface the imprint:—­“Sundry items.”