He was the butt of uncounted playful jests, which grew more
and more thunder-charged under the influence of wine. Led
off by the registrar, they followed up one pun with another.
Du Bousquier's character was now ap-parent; he was not a
father of the church, nor a reverend father, nor yet a con-
script father, and so on and so on, till the Abbe de Sponde
said, "In any case, he is not a foster-father," with a gravity
that checked the laughter.
THE JEALOUSIES OF A COUNTRY TOWN 85

"Nor a heavy father," added the Chevalier.
The Church and the aristocracy had descended into the
arena of word-play without loss of dignity.
"Hush!" said the registrar, "I can hear du Bousquier's
boots creaking; he is in over shoes over boots, and no mis-
take."

It nearly always happens that when a man's name is in
every one's mouth, he is the last to hear what is said of him;
the whole town may be talking of him, slandering him or cry-
ing him down, and if he has no friends to repeat what other
people say of him, he is not likely to hear it. So the blame-
less du Bousquier, du Bousquier who would fain have been
guilty, who wished that Suzanne had not lied to him, was
supremely unconscious of all that was taking place. Nobody
had spoken to him of Suzanne's revelations ; for that matter,
everybody thought it indiscreet to ask questions about the
afEair, when the man most concerned sometimes possesses se-
crets which compel him to keep silence. So when people ad-
journed for coffee to the drawing-room, where several evening
visitors were already assembled, du Bousquier wore an irre-
sistible and slightly fatuous air.
