to have it done here; and, besides,
I prefer to entertain those people in town. You warned Marianne, eh?"

"Certainly. She knows that I shall return by the
quarter-to-eleven-o'clock train."

Beauchene had sunk upon a chair: "Ah! my dear fellow, I'm worn out,"
he continued; "I dined in town last night; I got to bed only at one
o'clock. And there was a terrible lot of work waiting for me this
morning. One positively needs to be made of iron."

Until a short time before he had shown himself a prodigious worker,
endowed with really marvellous energy and strength. Moreover, he
had given proof of unfailing business instinct with regard to many
profitable undertakings. Invariably the first to appear at the works, he
looked after everything, foresaw everything, filling the place with his
bustling zeal, and doubling his output year by year. Recently, however,
fatigue had been gaining ground on him. He had always sought plenty of
amusement, even amid the hard-working life he led. But nowadays certain
"sprees," as he called them, left him fairly exhausted.

He gazed at Mathieu: "You seem fit enough, you do!" he said. "How is it
that you manage never to look tired?"

As a matter of fact, the young man who stood there erect before his
drawing-table seemed possessed of the sturdy health of a young oak
tree. Tall and slender, he had the broad, lofty, tower-like brow of the
Froments. He wore his thick hair cut quite short, and his beard, which
curled slightly, in a point. But the chief expression of his face rested
in his eyes, which were at once deep and bright, keen and thoughtful,
and almost invariably illumined by a smile. They showed him to be at
once a man of thought and of action, very simple, very gay, and of a
kindly disposition.

"Oh! I," he answered with a laugh, "I behave reasonably."

But Beauchene protested: "No, you don't! The man who already has four
children when he is only twenty-seven can't claim to be reasonable. And
twins too--your Blaise and your Denis to begin with! And then your boy
Ambroise and your little girl Rose. Without counting the other little
girl that you lost at her birth. Including her, you would now have had
five youngsters, you wretched fellow! No, no, I'm the one who behaves
reasonably--I, who have but one child, and, like a prudent, sensible
man, desire no others!"

He often made such jesting remarks as these, through which filtered his
genuine indignation; for he deemed the young coupl