Of course, Annette was not invited to participate in these ructions; the Brissots talked about them among themselves, in the drawing-room or at table, when Roger and Annette seemed occupied with each other. But Annette's keen attention followed everything that was said around her. Besides, Roger would interrupt the most loving dialogue to take part in the discussion that passionately interested them all. Then they grew heated, they all talked at once, they forgot Annette. Or they called upon her to witness facts of which she was ignorant.--Until finally, Madame Brissot, recalling the listener's presence, cut short the colloquy, and, turning her melting smile upon Annette, shifted the conversation into more flowery paths. Then, with no transition, they returned to affable good fellowship. There was in the general tone of the conversation a curious alloy of prudery and frankness,--just as liberality and stinginess were mingled in the château life. Lively Monsieur Brissot made puns. Mademoiselle Brissot talked poetry, and on this subject everyone had his say. They all pretended to a knowledge of it. Their taste dated back some twenty years. On everything to do with art, they had fixed opinions. They relied on the tried and true opinions of their "friend so and so" who belonged to the Institute and was much decorated. No more timid minds, in the face of authority, could be imagined than these big bourgeois who thought that they were as advanced in art as in politics, and who were advanced in neither one nor the other; for in both they never, wittingly, arrived on the field until after the battle had been won. Annette felt herself far away from them. She looked, listened, and asked herself: "What have I to do with these people?" The idea that one or another of them might presume to act as her guardian did not even repel her any more, it made her want to laugh. She asked herself what Sylvie would have thought, had she been blessed with a family of this sort. What shouts, what bursts of laughter! . . . Annette answered them sometimes, when she was all alone in the garden. And it happened that Roger heard her one day, and asked in astonishment: "What in the world is making you laugh?" To which she replied: "Nothing, dear. I don't know. Nonsense. . . ." And she tried to reassume her soberest expression. But it was stronger than she: she began laughing harder than ever, even in front of the Brissot ladies. She begged pardon, and the Mesdames Brissot, indulgent and a little vexed, said: "The child! She has to get rid of her laughter!"