Her first experience was favorable enough. In Annette's absence her old Aunt Victorine had remained in charge of the house, as she had done now for many years. This diminutive person of more than sixty had a fresh complexion, unwrinkled cheeks and tight little ringlets close about her face. Calm, gentle, inoffensive, excessively timid, she had kept herself sheltered from everything that might have disturbed her. From her childhood Annette had always seen this Dame Trot of an aunt about the house, looking after all the bothersome domestic duties, seeing that everything was clean and comfortable and watching over the kitchen (for she was an epicure), playing the part of an old family servant for whom, just because she was part of the household furniture, nobody put himself out. Her opinions had no weight; as a matter of fact, she had none. In the course of the thirty years she had passed under her brother's roof Aunt Victorine might have seen and heard strange things. But she had seen nothing, heard nothing. It would have required force to make her see what she did not wish to see. Raoul had taken no precautions. In his circle of intimates he called her the deaf-mute of his seraglio. He made fun of her to her face, fooled her, was rude to her, called her a blockhead, made her cry, and then coaxed her back into a good humor, gave her a noisy smack on both cheeks and induced her to coddle him as if he had been a big boy. She had remembered him as a man with a heart of gold, indeed as a saint--which would have amused him very much in his grave if, for a Raoul Rivière, a tireless lover of the superficial things of this world, anything that lay beneath had been worth so much as a smile.