“Wait another moment,” Valentine at last said to her husband; “I told Celeste to bring the children, so that we might kiss them before starting.”

Mathieu wished to profit by this fresh delay, and sought to renew his request; but Valentine was already rattling on again, talking of dining at the most disreputable restaurant possible, and asking if at the first performance which they were to attend they would see all the horrors which had been hissed at the dress rehearsal the night before.  She appeared like a pupil of the two men between whom she stood.  She even went further in her opinions than they did, displaying the wildest pessimism, and such extreme views on literature and art that they themselves could not forbear laughing.  Wagner was greatly over-estimated, in her opinion; she asked for invertebrate music, the free harmony of the passing wind.  As for her moral views, they were enough to make one shudder.  She had got past the argumentative amours of Ibsen’s idiotic, rebellious heroines, and had now reached the theory of pure intangible beauty.  She deemed Santerre’s last creation, Anne-Marie, to be far too material and degraded, because in one deplorable passage the author remarked that Norbert’s kisses had left their trace on the Countess’s brow.  Santerre disputed the quotation, whereupon she rushed upon the volume and sought the page to which she had referred.

“But I never degraded her,” exclaimed the novelist in despair.  “She never has a child.”

“Pooh!  What of that?” exclaimed Valentine.  “If Anne-Marie is to raise our hearts she ought to be like spotless marble, and Norbert’s kisses should leave no mark upon her.”

But she was interrupted, for Celeste, the maid, a tall dark girl with an equine head, big features, and a pleasant air, now came in with the two children.  Gaston was at this time five years old, and Lucie was three.  Both were slight and delicate, pale like roses blooming in the shade.  Like their mother, they were fair.  The lad’s hair was inclined to be carroty, while that of the girl suggested the color of oats.  And they also had their mother’s blue eyes, but their faces were elongated like that of their father.  Dressed in white, with their locks curled, arrayed indeed in the most coquettish style, they looked like big fragile dolls.  The parents were touched in their worldly pride at sight of them, and insisted on their playing their parts with due propriety.

“Well, don’t you wish anybody good evening?”

The children were not timid; they were already used to society and looked visitors full in the face.  If they made little haste, it was because they were naturally indolent and did not care to obey.  They at last made up their minds and allowed themselves to be kissed.

“Good evening, good friend Santerre.”

Then they hesitated before Mathieu, and their father had to remind them of the gentleman’s name, though they had already seen him on two or three occasions.