Chapter 8 - Page 2

whom the old
boy used still to go three or four evenings out of the seven and
sometimes even in the morning besides. Gaston fully measured the place
she had held in his father's life and affection, and the terms on which
they had grown up together--her people had been friends of his
grandfather when that fine old Southern worthy came, a widower with a
young son and several negroes, to take his pleasure in Paris in the time
of Louis Philippe--and the devoted part she had played in marrying his
sisters. He was quite aware that her friendship and all its exertions
were often mentioned as explaining their position, so remarkable in a
society in which they had begun after all as outsiders. But he would
have guessed, even if he had not been told, what his father said to
that. To offer the Proberts a position was to carry water to the
fountain; they hadn't left their own behind them in Carolina; it had
been large enough to stretch across the sea. As to what it was in
Carolina there was no need of being explicit. This adoptive Parisian was
by nature presupposing, but he was admirably urbane--that was why they
let him talk so before the fire; he was the oracle persuasive, the
conciliatory voice--and after the death of his wife and of Mme. de
Marignac, who had been her friend too, the young man's mother's, he was
gentler, if more detached, than before. Gaston had already felt him to
care in consequence less for everything--except indeed for the true
faith, to which he drew still closer--and this increase of indifference
doubtless helped to explain his present charming accommodation.

"We shall be thankful for any rooms you may give us," his son said. "We
shall fill out the house a little, and won't that be rather an
improvement, shrunken as you and I have become?"

"You'll fill it out a good deal, I suppose, with Mr. Dosson and the
other girl."

"Ah Francie won't give up her father and sister, certainly; and what
should you think of her if she did? But they're not intrusive; they're
essentially modest people; they won't put themselves upon us. They have
great natural discretion," Gaston declared.

"Do you answer for that? Susan does; she's always assuring one of it,"
Mr. Probert said. "The father has so much that he wouldn't even speak to
me."

"He didn't, poor dear man, know what to say."

"How then shall I know what to say to HIM?"

"Ah you always know!" Gaston smiled.

"How will that help us if he doesn't know what to answer?"

"You'll draw him out. He's full of a funny little shade of bonhomie."

"Well, I won't quarrel with your bonhomme," said Mr.