Eve herself had wished for the delay. She meant to establish the little household on the most economical footing, and to buy only strict necessaries; but what could two lovers refuse to a brother who watched his sister at her work, and said in tones that came from the heart, “How I wish I could sew!” The sober, observant David had shared in the devotion; and yet, since Lucien’s triumph, David had watched him with misgivings; he was afraid that Lucien would change towards them, afraid that he would look down upon their homely ways. Once or twice, to try his brother, David had made him choose between home pleasures and the great world, and saw that Lucien gave up the delights of vanity for them, and exclaimed to himself, “They will not spoil him for us!” Now and again the three friends and Mme. Chardon arranged picnic parties in provincial fashion--a walk in the woods along the Charente, not far from Angoulême, and dinner out on the grass, David’s apprentice bringing the basket of provisions to some place appointed before-hand; and at night they would come back, tired somewhat, but the whole excursion had not cost three francs. On great occasion, when they dined at a _restaurât_, as it is called, a sort of a country inn, a compromise between a provincial wineshop and a Parisian _guinguette_, they would spend as much as five francs, divided between David and the Chardons. David gave his brother infinite credit for forsaking Mme. de Bargeton and grand dinners for these days in the country, and the whole party made much of the great man of Angoulême. Matters had gone so far, that the new home was very nearly ready, and David had gone over to Marsac to persuade his father to come to the wedding, not without a hope that the old man might relent at the sight of his daughter-in-law, and give something towards the heavy expenses of the alterations, when there befell one of those events which entirely change the face of things in a small town. Lucien and Louise had a spy in Châtelet, a spy who watched, with the persistence of a hate in which avarice and passion are blended, for an opportunity of making a scandal. Sixte meant that Mme. de Bargeton should compromise herself with Lucien in such a way that she should be “lost,” as the saying goes; so he posed as Mme. de Bargeton’s humble confidant, admired Lucien in the Rue du Minage, and pulled him to pieces everywhere else. Naïs had gradually given him _les petites entrées, in the language of the court, for the lady no longer mistrusted her elderly admirer; but Châtelet had taken too much for granted--love was still in the Platonic stage, to the great despair of Louise and Lucien.