When Biron turned his torrent of objurgation on the tradespeople who sold him eatables there was no stopping him. Marise cut in now. "Were you going out for another? Do you want me to go?" "Yes, yes--only not for a sole--there wouldn't be one left--and the dinner was _planned_ for sole!" He ground his teeth, white and sound as a wolf's, "I could send Melanie if she had the intelligence of an angle-worm--and yet to leave her with my sauce till I get back--I was right in the midst of a _sauce piquante_ for the...." He turned as if to rush back upstairs, distractedly, and turned again as if to rush distractedly out into the street. Marise put out her hand for the market-bag and spoke with the peremptory decision that was always necessary to unloosen Biron from his temperamental tangles. "Go right back to your sauce, Biron. I'll have the fish here in five minutes. And have plenty of onion in that sauce. My father thought the last not well-balanced, too much vinegar. He likes his sauces suave." "But not a sole, Mademoiselle, not a sole! Any sole that is left on the market at six of the evening is left because nobody would buy it. But the dinner was _planned_ for sole!" He stamped his huge, felt-slippered feet in exasperation. "A mackerel," suggested Marise, "they're good at this time of the year." He flung his arms over his head. "A _mackerel_! A gross, fat, dark monster like a mackerel to replace a _sole_!" "Oh, no, of course not." Marise saw his point. "I didn't think. Nor salmon, of course." He shuddered away from the idea of salmon. They stood staring at each other, thinking hard, the cook's big, parboiled fist clenched on his mouth, his brows knit together, like those of the _Penseur_. "Some merlans?" suggested Marise. "You can cook them _au gratin_ just _like_ a sole." "But will I have time!" he groaned. "Who knows whether the oven is hot enough?" "Well, hurry back and brighten the fire, while I rush out and get the fish." He fled back up the stairs, his slippers flapping. She left her roll of music in the concierge's care and darted out into the street, market-bag in hand. Twenty minutes later the fish were being disposed with a religious care on a bed of chopped parsley, shallots, mushrooms and butter. Biron shoved the baking-pan tenderly into the oven, wiped the sweat from his face, and stopped storming at his wife. "You were not to blame, after all, Melanie," he told her magnanimously, and with a long breath, "But it was a close call, by God, a close call." In the salon Marise was pouring an aperitif for her father, brightly dishing up the news of the day with the sauce of lively comment, and saying nothing about culinary close calls. Her father listened to her, sipping his Dubonnet with an air of intense satisfaction. He took plenty of time for it, allowing each mouthful to deliver all its complicated burden of tang and bitterness and heat before he took another one into his mouth.