Abbé Horteur broke out into a loud laugh, and even Doctor Cazenove himself seemed tickled at the idea, when the window on the first floor was suddenly thrown open with a tremendous clatter. Louise did not show herself, but merely called in a sharp voice: 'Come upstairs, Lazare!' At first Lazare seemed inclined to rebel and to refuse obedience to a command given in such a voice. But Pauline, anxious to avoid a scene before visitors, gave him an entreating look, and he went off to the house, while his cousin remained for a moment or two longer on the terrace to do what she could to dissipate the awkwardness of the situation. No one spoke, and they all looked at the sea in embarrassment. The westering sun was now casting a sheet of gold over it, crowning the little blue waves with quivering fires. Far away in the distance the horizon was changing to a soft lilac hue. The lovely day was drawing towards its close in perfect serenity, and not a cloud or a sail flecked the infinite stretch of sky and sea. 'Well, as he never came home last night,' Pauline at last ventured to say with a smile, 'I suppose it is necessary to lecture him a little.' The Doctor looked at her, and on his face also appeared a smile, in which Pauline could read his prediction of former days, when he had told her that she wasn't making them a very desirable present in bestowing them on one another. And at this she walked away towards the kitchen. 'Well, I must really leave you now,' she said. 'Try to amuse yourselves. Call for me, uncle, if Paul wakes up again.' In the kitchen, when she had stirred the stew and got the spit ready, she knocked the pots and pans about impatiently. The voices of Louise and Lazare reached her more and more distinctly through the ceiling, and she grew distressed as she thought that they would certainly be heard on the terrace. It was very absurd of them, she said to herself, to go on shouting as though they were both deaf, and letting everybody know of their disagreements. But she did not care to go up to them, partly because she had to get the dinner ready, and partly because she felt ill at ease at the thought of interfering with them in their own room. It was generally downstairs, amid the common life of the family, that she played her part of reconciler. She went into the dining-room for a few moments and busied herself with laying the table. But the shouting still continued, and she could no longer bear the thought that they were making themselves unhappy. So, impelled by that spirit of active charity which made the happiness of others the chief thought of her life, she at last went upstairs. 'My dear children,' she exclaimed, as she abruptly entered the room, 'I daresay you will tell me it is no business of mine, but you are really making too much noise. It is very foolish of you to excite yourselves in this way and disturb the whole house.'