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His treatise weighed upon his mind; again and again he tried to talk about silkworms; but the luckless wight happened first upon M. de Bartas, who talked music in reply, and next on M. de Saintot, who quoted Cicero to him; and not until the evening was half over did the mayor meet with sympathetic listeners in Mme. and Mlle. du Brossard, a widowed gentlewoman and her daughter.
I came because they needed to be frightened, and I'm glad you caught me, for I told Jules that I should tell you about them as soon as you got home. Brossard has starved and beaten him like a dog ever since he has been here. I just hope that you will look at the stripes and bruises on his poor little back.
It was the discordant voice of Mariana la Mursiana, crackling in strident protest. My door was still open; I turned to look and saw her, hot-faced, tousle-haired, insufficiently wrapped, striving to ascend the gallery steps, but valiantly opposed by Madame Brossard, who stood in the way. "But NO, madame," insisted Madame Brossard, excited but darkly determined. "You cannot ascend.
"Good night, monsieur," she called, as the gate clanged behind her. No sooner had the gate closed upon the subdued little ghost, shorn now of its terrors, than the old man strode forward to the place where Brossard crouched in the straw, still crossing himself. This sudden appearance of his master at such a time only added to Brossard's fright.
But all at once one of them turned round, and said to me angrily: "Veux-tu bien t'en aller, petit espion!" otherwise: "Be off, little spy!" I woke up as it were, looked at him, and to my amazement recognized Gambetta, whom I had seen several times already, when I was with my mentor Brossard at either the Cafe de Suede or the Cafe de Madrid.
It sounded like a song, and the words were not like any that he had ever heard since he came to live with Henri and Brossard. He could not forget them, though, for had they not sung themselves through that beautiful dream every time he had it? "Little Boy Blue, oh, where are you? O, where are you-u-u-u?" He only laughed in the dream picture and ran on after the firefly.
"I am not in the habit of crawling out of ventilators," I added, subduing a tendency to vehemence. "And probably Mademoiselle Ward has only come to talk with Madame Brossard." "I fear some of those people may have told her you were here," he ventured insinuatingly. "What people?" I asked, drinking my coffee calmly, yet, it must be confessed, without quite the deliberation I could have wished.
"Monsieur the professor is a man of secrets, it appears," continued Amedee. "When he wrote to Madame Brossard engaging his rooms, he instructed her to be careful that none of us should mention even his name; and to-day when he came, he spoke of his anxiety on that point." "But you did mention it." "To whom, monsieur?" asked the old fellow blankly. "To me."
"I do not know this man, nor does he know me, but I have fear" his beard moved as though his chin were trembling "I have fear that I know his employers. Still, it may be better if you go. Bring somebody here that we can ask." "Shall I find Amedee?" "No, no, no! That babbler? Find Madame Brossard."
Mme. and Mlle. du Brossard were not the least interesting persons in the clique, but their story may be told in a single phrase they were as poor as they were noble. In their dress there was just that tinge of pretension which betrayed carefully hidden penury.
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