Still,
I admit that I share the regret people feel at your absence from
society. You might as well not live here at all. Really, madame, you
would have been delighted had you heard the praises showered on
Monsieur Claes and on you."
"You acted like a faithful friend in repelling imputations whose least
evil is to make me ridiculous," said Balthazar. "Ha! so they think me
ruined? Well, my dear Pierquin, two months hence I shall give a fete
in honor of my wedding-day whose magnificence will get me back the
respect my dear townsmen bestow on wealth."
Madame Claes colored deeply. For two years the anniversary had been
forgotten. Like madmen whose faculties shine at times with unwonted
brilliancy, Balthazar was never more gracious and delightful in his
tenderness than at this moment. He was full of attention to his
children, and his conversation had the charms of grace, and wit, and
pertinence. This return of fatherly feeling, so long absent, was
certainly the truest fete he could give his wife, for whom his looks
and words expressed once more that unbroken sympathy of heart for
heart which reveals to each a delicious oneness of sentiment.
Old Lemulquinier seemed to renew his youth; he came and went about the
table with unusual liveliness, caused by the accomplishment of his
secret hopes. The sudden change in his master's ways was even more
significant to him than to Madame Claes.
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