e three or four waiters
were not able to attend to all the requirements, especially as they were
hampered in their movements by the crowd purchasing fruit, bread, and
cold meat at the counter. It was at a little table at the far end of the
room that Raymonde was lunching with Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar.

"Ah! here you are at last, mamma!" the girl exclaimed, as Madame de
Jonquiere approached. "I was just going back to fetch you. You certainly
ought to be allowed time to eat!"

She was laughing, with a very animated expression on her face, quite
delighted as she was with the adventures of the journey and this
indifferent scrambling meal. "There," said she, "I have kept you some
trout with green sauce, and there's a cutlet also waiting for you. We
have already got to the artichokes."

Then everything became charming. The gaiety prevailing in that little
corner rejoiced the sight.

Young Madame Desagneaux was particularly adorable. A delicate blonde,
with wild, wavy, yellow hair, a round, dimpled, milky face, a gay,
laughing disposition, and a remarkably good heart, she had made a rich
marriage, and for three years past had been wont to leave her husband at
Trouville in the fine August weather, in order to accompany the national
pilgrimage as a lady-hospitaller. This was her great passion, an access
of quivering pity, a longing desire to place herself unreservedly at the
disposal of the sick for five days, a real debauch of devotion from which
she returned tired to death but full of intense delight. Her only regret
was that she as yet had no children, and with comical passion, she
occasionally expressed a regret that she had missed her true vocation,
that of a sister of charity.

"Ah! my dear," she hastily said to Raymonde, "don't pity your mother for
being so much taken up with her patients. She, at all events, has
something to occupy her." And addressing herself to Madame de Jonquiere,
she added: "If you only knew how long we find the time in our fine
first-class carriage. We cannot even occupy ourselves with a little
needlework, as it is forbidden. I asked for a place with the patients,
but all were already distributed, so that my only resource will be to try
to sleep tonight."

She began to laugh, and then resumed: "Yes, Madame Volmar, we will try to
sleep, won't we, since talking seems to tire you?" Madame Volmar, who
looked over thirty, was very dark, with a long face and delicate but
drawn features.