Marc had remained silent, contenting himself with listening. He had accompanied David merely to give him the support of his presence as one of Simon's colleagues. But while he listened he glanced in the direction of the oak tree, at the ladies sitting there--Countess Marie, as the beautiful Lia was now called, and the Marchioness de Boise, between whom Father Crabot was reposing in a rustic armchair, while Count Hector de Sanglebœuf, who had remained erect, finished chewing a cigar. The Marchioness, still slim and still pretty under her fair hair, which she powdered, was expressing great anxiety respecting a sunbeam which darted on the nape of the Countess's neck; and although the beautiful Jewess, indolent and superb, declared that she was in no way inconvenienced, her friend, lavishing on her all the usual pet names, 'my pussy,' 'my jewel,' and 'my treasure,' at last compelled her to change places. The Jesuit Crabot, who was evidently at his ease, smiled at both of them with the air of a very tolerant father-confessor. And meantime a never-ending flute-like strain came from the crystalline water which the indelicate nymph was pouring from her urn into the marble basin. Sanglebœuf, on being called by his father-in-law, came forward slowly. With a big body and a full and highly-coloured face, a low forehead and short-cropped, ruddy, bristling hair, he had eyes of a dim blue, a small flabby nose, and a large voracious mouth, half-hidden by thick moustaches. As soon as the Baron had told him of the help which David solicited, he became quite angry, though he affected a kind of military plain-speaking. 'What! mix myself up in that affair! Ah, no!' he exclaimed. 'You must excuse me, monsieur, if I employ my credit as a deputy in clearer and cleaner affairs. I am quite willing to believe that you personally are an honourable man. But you will really have a great deal to do if you wish to defend your brother. Besides, as all those who support you say, we are the enemy. Why do you apply to us?' Then, turning his big, blurred, wrathful eyes on Marc, he began to hold forth against the godless and unpatriotic folk who dared to insult the army. Too young to have fought in 1870, he had merely served as a garrison soldier, taking part in no campaign whatever. Nevertheless he had remained a cuirassier to his very marrow, to cite one of his own expressions. And he boasted that he had set two emblems at his bedside, two emblems which summed up his religion--a crucifix and a flag, his flag--for which, unfortunately for a good many people, he had not died. 'When you have restored the Cross to the schools, monsieur,' he continued, 'when your schoolmasters decide to make Christians and not citizens of their pupils, then, and only then, will you have any claim on us should you ask us to render you a service.'