Page:Colas breugnon.djvu/302

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288
COLAS BREUGNON

mire, but none the less I lie in wait for the chance to guide them in the way I would have them go.

When we all gathered round the dinner table I had at my right hand John Francis, who is a bigoted Catholic; on my left, my son Anthony from Lyons, who is an equally bigoted Huguenot. They sat up stiffly on their chairs, staring straight before them, so as not to be obliged to look at one another.

John Francis is a smiling prosperous man with a hard shrewd eye; he talked interminably of his business, boasted of his money and of the fine linen that he sold by the special favor of Providence. Anthony's lips are shaved but he wears a little beard on his chin; and is morose and cold in his manner. He also talked of his trade in books, his journeys to Geneva, his affairs generally, and attributed his prosperity to God, but it seemed to be a different Deity. Neither listened, but kept on monotonously repeating the same refrain, until at last they became annoyed and began to introduce topics of a controversial nature, one dwelling on the progress of The Religion, the other on the stability of The True Faith; all the time each ignored his antagonist, sat as if nailed to his seat, and spoke with the utmost contempt, and in a sharp rasping voice, of the enemies' God.