he
table, and at twelve o'clock he made Madelon go downstairs to
breakfast with Madame Lavaux in her own little sitting-room.
Madame, who was really very fond of her, had forgotten all
about the altercation of the night before. Indeed she was both
good-natured and kind-hearted as soon as she could allow her
better impulses to have their own way; but she was a little
apt, as are most people to whom life resolves itself into a
narrow ministering to their personal pains and pleasures, to
look upon untoward occurrences as evidence of the causeless
animosity of some vague impersonality, continually on the
watch to adjust the largest events of life so as to occasion
her particular inconvenience. If half Paris and its environs
had been destroyed by an earthquake, her first impression of
the catastrophe would very possibly have been that it could
not have happened at a worse moment for raising the price of
early asparagus, though the further reflection that the
general want of accommodation would justify her in doubling
her hotel tariff, might in some measure have restored her
faith in the fitness of things. After this, she would have
found time to be overwhelmed with compassion for the
sufferers. M. Linders' accident, she found, had, as yet, been
attended with no evil results, so far as she was concerned; no
one had been disturbed in the night, no one had left, so that,
for the moment, it had been safely transferred to that region
of abstract facts, which she could consider dispassionately,
and judge by the light of her kindly impulses; and it was
under the influence of these that she was now bent on petting
and making much of Madelon, giving her cakes and confitures
and all kinds of good things. On second thoughts she had
rejected the idea that M. Linders was going to die; it would
be so very troublesome and inconvenient, that she found it
pleasanter to persuade herself that he would surely recover;
and now, on the strength of his conviction, and with a kind
wish to console Madelon, she became so encouraging, so certain
he would be well again in a few weeks--in a few weeks did she
say?--in a few days--with this clever English doctor, who, as
she improvised for the occasion, everyone knew was one of the
first doctors in London--with all this Madame so encouraged and
cheered our Madelon, that she came upstairs again at the end
of an hour looking quite bright, and almost expecting to see
some wonderful change for the better