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The other fellows had noticed him now, and had christened him 'Marny's Shadow. One of them wanted to ask him his business, and fire him into the street if it wasn't satisfactory, but I wouldn't have it. He had said nothing to me or anybody else, nor had he, so far as I knew, followed me when I went out.
Dear old Aunt Chloe, in white apron and red bandanna, her round black face dimpled with smiles, was busying herself about the room, straightening the rugs, puffing up the cushions of the divan, pushing back the easels to get at the burnt ends of abandoned cigarettes, doing her best, indeed, to bring some kind of domestic order out of Marny's Bohemian chaos.
"With me it has only been prison so far," continued the old man simply, "but prison has rendered me just as helpless as the guillotine would have done, for the enemies of le bon Dieu have ransacked the Church of Saint Joseph and stolen the jewels which I should have guarded with my life." But it was obvious joy for the Abbe to talk of Juliette Marny's happiness.
You wouldn't have thought so had you dropped in upon us and scanned his waist measure, but then, of course, you don't know Marny. Again Marny's eyes rested for a moment on the miniature; then he went on: "We were about broke when I painted it," he said.
It was a careful study of a man with clear-cut features, slim and of wiry build, and was painted with that mastery of detail which distinguishes Marny's work over that of every other figure-painter of his time.
You've only to look at Marny's sixty-inch waist-line to prove the truth of this theory. Now look at me I keep my figure, don't I? Not a bad one for a light-weight, is it? I'm in perfect health, can run, jump, eat, sleep, paint, and but for a slight organic weakness with my heart, which is hereditary in my family and which kills most of us off at about seventy years of age, I'm as sound as a nut.
With this tightly grasped in her wrinkled brown hand, together with another package of Marny's many times in excess of the stage fare of thirty-six miles and which she slipped into her capacious bosom, Aunt Chloe "made her manners" with the slightest dip of a courtesy and left us with the remark: "Sha'n't nothin' tech her, honey; gwinter stick right close to her till de steam-cars git to movin', I'll be over early in de mawnin' an' let ye know.
"Well, she's too good-lookin' to be wanderin' round huntin' for a boardin'-house. You see her on the train, that's all. Starts at eight to-night. That's the one they all go by those who git out and can raise the money. She ought to leave now, 'cordin' to the regulations, but as long as you're a friend of Mr. Marny's I'll keep her here in the office till I go home at seven o'clock.
"And a sixty-inch waist," interjected Joplin with a laugh, pointing at Marny's waistcoat. "I acknowledge it, old man, and I'm proud of it," retorted Marny, patting his rotundity.
Ten years had gone by since then. Lying upon the sweet-scented bed which the hospitality of the Derouledes had provided for her, she seemed to see passing before her the spectres of these past ten years the first four, after her brothers death, until the old Duc de Marny's body slowly followed his soul to its grave.
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