'Louise! Ah, that's a capital idea!' Chanteau exclaimed. And when the girls stood side by side before him, the one still in her deep mourning and the other in her gay summer toilette, he continued, delighted with this new distraction: 'Ah, so you have made peace! Well, I never quite understood what was the matter--some nonsense, I suppose. How naughty it was of you, my poor Louisette, to keep estranged from us during all the trouble we've been through! Well! it's all at an end now, eh?' A feeling of embarrassment kept the girls silent. They blushed and avoided looking at each other. Then Louise stepped forward and kissed Chanteau to hide her confusion. But he wanted some explanations. 'You met each other, I suppose.' Thereupon Louise turned towards her friend, while her eyes filled with tears. 'It was Pauline who came to see us. I was just going back into the house myself when she arrived. You mustn't scold her for staying the night with us, for it was my fault. I made her stay. And, as the telegraph goes no further than Arromanches, we thought we should get here ourselves as soon as any message. Do you forgive me?' She kissed Chanteau again with all her old caressing manner. He inquired no further. When what happened contributed to his pleasure, he had no fault to find with it. 'But there's Lazare,' he added; 'aren't you going to speak to him?' The young man had kept in the background, with an embarrassed smile on his face. His father's remark completed his confusion, the more especially as Louise only blushed again and made no step towards him. Why was she there, he asked himself? Why had his cousin brought back this rival, whom she had so violently driven away? He had not yet recovered from his confusion at the sight of her. 'Kiss her, Lazare!' said Pauline softly, 'since she is too timid to kiss you.' Her face was quite white, as she stood there in her deep mourning, but her expression was perfectly peaceful, and her eyes clear and untroubled. She looked at them both with the maternal, serious expression which she assumed in her graver moments of household responsibility, and only smiled when the young man took courage to let his lips just touch the cheek which Louise offered him. When Véronique saw this, she rushed away and shut herself up in her kitchen, perfectly thunderstruck. It was altogether beyond her comprehension. After all that had passed, Mademoiselle Pauline could have very little heart. She was becoming quite ridiculous in her desire to please others. It wasn't sufficient to bring all the dirty little drabs of the neighbourhood into the house and put them in the way of walking off with the silver, but now she must bring sweethearts for Monsieur Lazare! The house was getting into a nice state indeed!