accomplishments of mind, and the ingratiating tenderness that love had
revealed to her, disposing them to listen to her matrimonial
grievances. Old people have a weakness for this kind of confidence.
Madame Guillaume wanted to know the most trivial details of that alien
life, which to her seemed almost fabulous. The travels of Baron da la
Houtan, which she began again and again and never finished, told her
nothing more unheard-of concerning the Canadian savages.

"What, child, your husband shuts himself into a room with naked women!
And you are so simple as to believe that he draws them?"

As she uttered this exclamation, the grandmother laid her spectacles
on a little work-table, shook her skirts, and clasped her hands on her
knees, raised by a foot-warmer, her favorite pedestal.

"But, mother, all artists are obliged to have models."

"He took good care not to tell us that when he asked leave to marry
you. If I had known it, I would never had given my daughter to a man
who followed such a trade. Religion forbids such horrors; they are
immoral. And at what time of night do you say he comes home?"

"At one o'clock--two----"

The old folks looked at each other in utter amazement.

"Then he gambles?" said Monsieur Guillaume. "In my day only gamblers
stayed out so late."

Augustine made a face that scorned the accusation.