On the whole Madame Roustan made but small
impression upon those who must listen to her weari-
some bragging — for the people of Saint Loup cared
as little about tides as they did about the Chambre
des Deputes, governmental disputes, and vain poli-
ticians, so that gradually she grew rather depressed,
since nothing is less pleasant than being deflated.
Thus it was that upon a certain warm night when the
port was noisy with voices and laughter, when some-
one was tinkling a mandolin, and someone was swing-
ing a concertina, and someone was urging his dog to
bark because someone else had just started singing,
thus it was that despite a studious son who was being
protected by so eminent a person, and despite her
own sense of superiority which should have made
her able to ignore her neighbours, Madame Roustan
of a sudden felt extremely depressed, and her thoughts
turned towards the Cafe de la Tarasque.
Now believing as she did in an ever-present devil,
it is strange that she could not detect fumes of sulphur,
that she could not perceive in her down-hearted
mood a state most propitious to successful temptation;
that, in fact, she saw nothing ominous in her sudden
desire to revisit the Cafe. For five years she had
never been near la Tarasque, although her own shop
was but three doors away, as not only did she highly
disapprove of the place, but she feared that it might
remind her of Goundran. Yet upon this particular
summer night, having seen that her child was safely
asleep, she proceeded to touch up her hair at the
glass, and then to steal guiltily out of the house while
the marble clock in the parlour struck twelve — which
meant that she also should have been sleeping.
And as though to aid and abet the foul fiend in
his crafty attack upon Madame Roustan's virtue,
Mere Melanie heaped coals of fire on her head by
extending a cordial and loudly voiced welcome;
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