The poor girl was indeed suffering tortures on finding that René had left her without so much as a look or a word. A great lump rose in her throat, and her eyes filled with tears. She had strength enough, however, to repress her sobs and to reply that she was overcome by the heat of the stove. Her mother darted a look at Emilie containing such a direct reproach that Madame Fresneau turned away her eyes involuntarily. She, too, was deeply grieved; for, although she had always been opposed to this marriage, which was quite out of keeping with the ambitious plans she vaguely cherished for her brother, she loved Rosalie. When the mother and her two daughters had put on their bonnets and were at last ready to go, Emilie's feelings led her to embrace Rosalie more affectionately than was her wont. She was quite ready to pity the girl's sufferings, but that pity was not entirely devoid of a sad kind of satisfaction at seeing René's manifest indifference, and as the door closed behind her visitors she turned to Françoise with unalloyed joy in her honest brown eyes. 'You will take care not to make any noise in the morning, won't you?' 'No more than a mouse,' replied the girl. 'And you too, my big beauty,' she said to her husband, on entering the dining-room, where the professor was once more at his exercises. 'I have told Constant to get up and dress quietly,' adding, with a proud smile, 'what a triumph for René to-night, provided that these grand folks don't turn up their noses at his verse! But I'm sure they'll not do that; his poetry is too good--almost as good as he is himself!' 'It is to be hoped that all these fine ladies will not spoil him as you do,' exclaimed Fresneau, 'for it would end by his losing his head. No, no,' he went on, in order to flatter his wife's feelings, 'it is a pleasure to see how modest he is, even in success.' And Emilie kissed her husband tenderly for those words. CHAPTER III A LOVER AND A SNOB