The plain of Austerlitz would not have stirred her to deeper emotion.
When she returned to the window, she perceived Aristide wandering about the place of the Sub-Prefecture, with his nose in the air.

She beckoned to him to come up, which he immediately did.

It seemed as if he had only been waiting for this invitation.
"Come in," his mother said to him on the landing, seeing that he hesitated.

"Your father is not here." Aristide evinced all the shyness of a prodigal son returning home.

He had not been inside the yellow drawing-room for nearly four years.