“Mademoiselle, monsieur told me to put the laboratory in order,” said Lemulquinier, facing the two women and looking them down, with a despotic air.

“Father,” said Marguerite, to Monsieur Claes who was just then descending the stairs, “can you let Mulquinier do an errand for us in town?”

“Now you’re forced to go, you old barbarian!” cried Martha, as she heard Monsieur Claes put Mulquinier at his daughter’s bidding.

The lack of good-will and devotion shown by the old valet for the family whom he served was a fruitful cause of quarrel between the two women and Lemulquinier, whose cold-heartedness had the effect of increasing the loyal attachment of Josette and the old duenna.

This dispute, apparently so paltry, was destined to influence the future of the Claes family when, at a later period, they needed succor in misfortune.

CHAPTER VIII

Balthazar was again so absorbed that he did not notice Josephine’s condition.  He took Jean upon his knee and trotted him mechanically, pondering, no doubt, the problem he now had the means of solving.  He saw them bring the footbath to his wife, who was still in the parlor, too weak to rise from the low chair in which she was lying; he gazed abstractedly at his daughters now attending on their mother, without inquiring the cause of their tender solicitude.  When Marguerite or Jean attempted to speak aloud, Madame Claes hushed them and pointed to Balthazar.  Such a scene was of a nature to make a young girl think; and Marguerite, placed as she was between her father and mother, was old enough and sensible enough to weigh their conduct.

There comes a moment in the private life of every family when the children, voluntarily or involuntarily, judge their parents.  Madame Claes foresaw the dangers of that moment.  Her love for Balthazar impelled her to justify in Marguerite’s eyes conduct that might, to the upright mind of a girl of sixteen, seem faulty in a father.  The very respect which she showed at this moment for her husband, making herself and her condition of no account that nothing might disturb his meditation, impressed her children with a sort of awe of the paternal majesty.  Such self-devotion, however infectious it might be, only increased Marguerite’s admiration for her mother, to whom she was more particularly bound by the close intimacy of their daily lives.  This feeling was based on the intuitive perception of sufferings whose causes naturally occupied the young girl’s mind.  No human power could have hindered some chance word dropped by Martha, or by Josette, from enlightening her as to the real reasons for the condition of her home during the last four years.  Notwithstanding Madame Claes’s reserve, Marguerite discovered slowly, thread by thread, the clue to the domestic drama.  She was soon to be her mother’s active confidante, and later, under other circumstances, a formidable judge.