Michael told me all this with a mixed feeling of pride and vexation. I saw he was proud of the son he was abusing, and that his very pride made him more sensible of that son's neglect.
_Six O'clock P. M._--I have just finished a happy day. How many events have happened within a few hours, and what a change for Genevieve and Michael!
He had just finished fixing the shelves and telling me of his son, while I laid the cloth for my breakfast.
Suddenly we heard hurried steps in the passage, the door opened, and Genevieve entered with Robert. The joiner gave a start of joyful surprise, but he repressed it immediately, as if he wished to keep up the appearance of displeasure.
The young man did not appear to notice it, but threw himself into his arms in an open-hearted manner which surprised me. Genevieve, whose face shone with happiness, seemed to wish to speak, and to restrain herself with difficulty.
I told Robert I was glad to see him, and he answered me with ease and civility.
"I expected you yesterday," said Michael Arout rather dryly.
"Forgive me, father," replied the young workman, "but I had business at St. Germain's. I was not able to come back till it was very late, and then the master kept me."
The joiner looked at his son sideways, and then took up his hammer again.
"All right," muttered he in a grumbling tone; "when we are with other people we must do as they wish; but there are some who would like better to eat brown bread with their own knife than partridges with the silver fork of a master."
"And I am one of those, father," replied Robert merrily; "but, as the proverb says, 'you must shell the peas before you can eat them.' It was necessary that I should first work in a great workshop--"
"To go on with your plan of the staircase," interrupted Michael, ironically.
"You must now say M. Raymond's plan, father," replied Robert, smiling.
The joiner, who was planing a board, turned round quickly.
"Sold it!" cried he, with sparkling eyes.
"For the reason that I was not rich enough to give it him."
"There he is again!" resumed he angrily; "his good genius puts an idea into his head which would have made him known, and he goes and sells it to a rich man, who will take all the honor of it himself."