“The omelet’s ready!” suddenly cried Madame Francois.

When they were all three seated round the table in the kitchen, with the door thrown open to the sunshine, they ate their breakfast with such light-hearted gaiety that Madame Francois looked at Florent in amazement, repeating between each mouthful:  “You’re quite altered.  You’re ten years younger.  It is that villainous Paris which makes you seem so gloomy.  You’ve got a little sunshine in your eyes now.  Ah! those big towns do one’s health no good, you ought to come and live here.”

Claude laughed, and retorted that Paris was a glorious place.  He stuck up for it and all that belonged to it, even to its gutters; though at the same time retaining a keen affection for the country.

In the afternoon Madame Francois and Florent found themselves alone at the end of the garden, in a corner planted with a few fruit trees.  Seated on the ground, they talked somewhat seriously together.  The good woman advised Florent with an affectionate and quite maternal kindness.  She asked him endless questions about his life, and his intentions for the future, and begged him to remember that he might always count upon her, if ever he thought that she could in the slightest degree contribute to his happiness.  Florent was deeply touched.  No woman had ever spoken to him in that way before.  Madame Francois seemed to him like some healthy, robust plant that had grown up with the vegetables in the leaf-mould of the garden; while the Lisas, the Normans, and other pretty women of the markets appeared to him like flesh of doubtful freshness decked out for exhibition.  He here enjoyed several hours of perfect well-being, delivered from all that reek of food which sickened him in the markets, and reviving to new life amidst the fertile atmosphere of the country, like that cabbage stalk which Claude declared he had seen sprout up more than half a score of times.

The two men took leave of Madame Francois at about five o’clock.  They had decided to walk back to Paris; and the market gardener accompanied them into the lane.  As she bade good-bye to Florent, she kept his hand in her own for a moment, and said gently:  “If ever anything happens to trouble you, remember to come to me.”

For a quarter of an hour Florent walked on without speaking, already getting gloomy again, and reflecting that he was leaving health behind him.  The road to Courbevoie was white with dust.  However, both men were fond of long walks and the ringing of stout boots on the hard ground.  Little clouds of dust rose up behind their heels at every step, while the rays of the sinking sun darted obliquely over the avenue, lengthening their shadows in such wise that their heads reached the other side of the road, and journeyed along the opposite footway.

Claude, swinging his arms, and taking long, regular strides, complacently watched these two shadows, whilst enjoying the rhythmical cadence of his steps, which he accentuated by a motion of his shoulders.  Presently, however, as though just awaking from a dream, he exclaimed:  “Do you know the ’Battle of the Fat and the Thin’?”