The familiarity of this maid-of-all-work, who had come straight to the Fresneaus from the professor's native village in Auvergne, and who had made herself thoroughly at home with them for the past fifteen years, was a constant source of amusement to Claude Larcher. He was one of those deep thinkers who worship utter simplicity, no doubt because they find in it a relief from the incessant and exhaustive labour of their own brain. Françoise would sometimes speak to him of his works in most droll and grotesque terms, or with great ingenuousness express the fear with which she was always haunted--that the author was going to put her into one of his plays; or, again, she would, after the manner of her kind, give a most ludicrous turn to some literary phrase she had picked up in waiting at table. Claude remembered how he had once heard her say, in praising René's ardour for work: 'He dentifries himself with his heroes.' He could not help laughing at it even now. She would say _ceuiller_ for _cuiller_, _engratigner_ for _égratigner_, _archeduc_ for _aqueduc_, to travel in _coquelicot_ for _incognito_, and a heap of other similar slips which the writer would amuse himself by jotting down in one of his innumerable notebooks for a novel that he would never finish. He was therefore as a rule glad to provoke the woman's gossip; but that evening he was not in a mood for it, being suddenly filled with melancholy at the idea that he was playing the part of a vulgar worldly tempter. Whilst Françoise was hanging up his coat for him he looked down the corridor that he knew so well, with its doors on each side. René's bedroom was on the right at the end of the passage, facing the south; the Fresneaus were satisfied with a smaller apartment looking north, the room next to this being occupied by their son Constant, a boy six years old, of whom Emilie thought a good deal less than of René. Claude was fully acquainted with all the reasons for this tender sisterly love, as he was indeed with the whole history of this family. It was that history, so touching in its modest simplicity, which amply justified his remorse in dragging from this peaceful retreat the one in whom all was centred.