And in everything, the slightest incident, the most common-place
remark, he found an opportunity for jeers and gibes. These made Mathieu
and Marianne extremely uncomfortable; but at last he let fall such a
harsh expression that Valentine indignantly rebelled, and he had to
apologize. At heart he feared her, especially when the blood of the
Vaugelades arose within her, and she gave him to understand, in her
haughty disdainful way, that she would some day revenge herself on him
for his treatment.
However, seeking another outlet for his spite and rancor, he at last
turned to Mathieu, and spoke of Chantebled, saying bitterly that the game
in the covers there was fast becoming scarcer and scarcer, in such wise
that he now had difficulty in selling his shooting shares, so that his
income from the property was dwindling every year. He made no secret of
the fact that he would much like to sell the estate, but where could he
possibly find a purchaser for those unproductive woods, those sterile
plains, those marshes and those tracts of gravel?
Mathieu listened to all this attentively, for during his long walks in
the summer he had begun to take an interest in the estate.
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