'I beg a thousand pardons. I forgot your
cloth. If you,' he added, 'would only forget it too, what larks we
might have together. _Allons, a table_.'
And they sat down.
If Paul had sincerely wished to forfeit Andre's respect, he could
scarcely have employed more efficacious means to do so, than his
speech and conduct throughout the meal that followed. You know how
flippant, how 'fly-away,' he can be when the mood seizes him, how
wholeheartedly he can play the fool. To-day he really behaved
outrageously; and, since the priest maintained a straight countenance,
I think the wonder is that he didn't excommunicate him.
'I remember you were a teetotaller, Andre, when you were young,' his
host began, pushing a decanter towards him.
'That, monsieur, was because my mother wished it, and my father was a
drunkard,' Andre answered bluntly. 'Since my father's death, I have
taken wine in moderation.' He filled his glass.
'I remember once I cooked some chestnuts over a spirit-stove, and you
refused to touch them, on the ground that they were alcoholic.'
'That would have been from a confusion of thought,' the cure
explained, with never a smile.
But it was better to err on the side of scrupulosity than on that of
self-indulgence.'
'Ah, that depends. That depends on whether the pleasure you got from
your renunciation equalled that you might have got from the
chestnuts.
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