would
have earned by her obligingness in providing a nurse. She put all her
spite into a glance which she shot at Marianne, who, thought she, was
evidently some poor creature unable even to afford a nurse. However, at
a sign which Celeste made her, she courtesied humbly and withdrew in the
company of the maid.

A few minutes afterwards, Seguin arrived, and, repairing to the
dining-room, they all sat down to lunch there. It was a very luxurious
meal, comprising eggs, red mullet, game, and crawfish, with red and
white Bordeaux wines and iced champagne. Such diet for Valentine and
Marianne would never have met with Dr. Boutan's approval; but Seguin
declared the doctor to be an unbearable individual whom nobody could
ever please.

He, Seguin, while showing all politeness to his guests, seemed that day
to be in an execrable temper. Again and again he levelled annoying and
even galling remarks at his wife, carrying things to such a point at
times that tears came to the unfortunate woman's eyes. Now that he
scarcely set foot in the house he complained that everything was going
wrong there. If he spent his time elsewhere it was, according to him,
entirely his wife's fault. The place was becoming a perfect hell upon
earth. And in everything, the slightest incident, the most common-place
remark, he found an opportunity for jeers and gibes. These made Mathieu
and Marianne extremely uncomfortable; but at last he let fall such a
harsh expression that Valentine indignantly rebelled, and he had to
apologize. At heart he feared her, especially when the blood of the
Vaugelades arose within her, and she gave him to understand, in her
haughty disdainful way, that she would some day revenge herself on him
for his treatment.

However, seeking another outlet for his spite and rancor, he at last
turned to Mathieu, and spoke of Chantebled, saying bitterly that the
game in the covers there was fast becoming scarcer and scarcer, in such
wise that he now had difficulty in selling his shooting shares, so that
his income from the property was dwindling every year. He made no secret
of the fact that he would much like to sell the estate, but where could
he possibly find a purchaser for those unproductive woods, those sterile
plains, those marshes and those tracts of gravel?

Mathieu listened to all this attentively, for during his long walks
in the summer he had begun to take an interest in the estate. "Are you
really of opinion that it cannot