“Perfect!” cried she with delight, “a tenor, there is not the least doubt of it, a tenor! Pray continue, sir.”
Octave, feeling highly flattered, gave out the two other verses. She was beaming. For three years past she had been seeking for one! And she told him of all her vexations, Monsieur Trublot, for instance; for it was a fact, the causes of which were worth studying, that there were no longer any tenors among the young men of society: no doubt it was owing to tobacco.
“Be careful, now!” resumed she, “we must put some expression into it. Begin it boldly.”
Her cold face assumed a languid expression, her eyes turned toward him with an expiring air. Thinking that she was warming, he became more animated also, and considered her charming.
“You will get along very well,” said she. “Only, accentuate the time more. See, like this.”
And she herself sang, repeating quite twenty times: “More trembling than you,” bringing out the notes with the rigor of a sinless woman, whose passion for music was not more than skin deep in her mechanism. Her voice rose little by little, filling the room with shrill cries, when they both suddenly heard some one exclaiming loudly behind their backs:
She started, and, recognizing her maid Clémence, exclaimed:
“Madame, your father has fallen with his face in his papers, and he doesn’t move. We are so frightened.”
Then, without exactly understanding, and greatly surprised, she quitted the piano and followed Clémence. Octave, who was uncertain whether to accompany her, remained walking about the drawing-room. However, after a few minutes of hesitation and embarrassment, as he heard people rushing about and calling out distractedly, he made up his mind, and, crossing a room that was in darkness, he found himself in Monsieur Vabre’s bedchamber.
“He is in a fit,” said Octave. “He must not be left there. We must get him onto his bed.”
But Madame Duveyrier was losing her head. Emotion was little by little seizing upon her cold nature. She kept repeating:
“Do you think so? do you think so? O good heavens! O my poor father!”
Hippolyte, a prey to an uneasy feeling, to a visible repugnance to touch the old man, who might go off in his arms, did not hurry himself. Octave had to call to him to help. Between them they laid him on the bed.
