hostess; but it also showed, what they did not know, the feeling of a
step-mother against a step-son. Madame Moreau, after seventeen years
of married life, could not be ignorant of the steward's attachment to
Madame Clapart and the little Husson, and she hated both mother and
child so vehemently that it is not surprising that Moreau had never
before risked bringing Oscar to Presles.

"We are requested, my husband and myself," she said to the two
artists, "to do you the honors of the chateau. We both love art, and,
above all, artists," she added in a mincing tone; "and I beg you to
make yourselves at home here. In the country, you know, every one
should be at their ease; one must feel wholly at liberty, or life is
_too_ insipid. We have already had Monsieur Schinner with us."

Mistigris gave a sly glance at his companion.

"You know him, of course?" continued Estelle, after a slight pause.

"Who does not know him, madame?" said the painter.

"Knows him like his double," remarked Mistigris.

"Monsieur Grindot told me your name," said Madame Moreau to the
painter. "But--"

"Joseph Bridau," he replied, wondering with what sort of woman he had
to do.

Mistigris began to rebel internally against the patronizing manner of
the steward's wife; but he waited, like Bridau, for some word which