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"'Rudolph, he said, when I appeared, 'who is this Estella Washington that you brought into the house some weeks since? Celestine has been telling me about her. How comes it I have never seen her?
"No," confessed Jennings, "that is, I can see it now, but I came here for many a long day before I did guess she was a Jewess. And then it was only because I learned the truth." "How did you learn it?" The detective related details of his visit to Monsieur Le Beau and the discovery that Maraquito Gredos was one and the same as Celestine Durand. Caranby listened attentively.
From the earliest days of their marriage Celestine, feeling herself beloved and admired by her husband, treated him without ceremony; she put herself above conjugal laws and the rules of private courtesy by expecting love to pardon all her little wrong-doings; and, as she never in any way corrected herself, she was always in the ascendant.
Celestine, who had gathered some of the extreme Franciscans into a community of his own, is said to have released them from obedience to the Franciscan Order. In any case, Boniface VIII not only secured the ex-Pope, but also attempted to exterminate his followers.
She often stopped there during her perambulations; sometimes taking a book with her, and sitting an hour or two under the trees when she found the place deserted. Once or twice she took a quiet dinner there alone, having instructed Celestine beforehand to prepare no dinner at home. It was the last place in the city where she would have expected to meet any one she knew.
Xavier Rabourdin fell desperately in love with Mademoiselle Celestine Leprince, then seventeen years of age, who had all the matrimonial claims of a dowry of two hundred thousand francs. Carefully educated by an artistic mother, who transmitted her own talents to her daughter, this young lady was fitted to attract distinguished men.
"You show a great deal of vanity in keeping near you such an accomplished creature," said a lady to the mistress of the house. "Ah! my dear, some day perhaps you will find yourself jealous of me in possessing Celestine." "She must be endowed with very rare qualities, I suppose? She perhaps dresses you well?" "Oh, no, very badly!" "She sews well?" "She never touches her needle." "She is faithful?"
The latter was a woman of somewhat unencouraging exterior, not the kind that invites confidences. But Celestine had confidences to bestow, and the exodus to the movies had left her in a position where she could not pick and choose. She was faced with the alternative of locking her secret in her palpitating bosom or of revealing it to this one auditor.
"Well then, monsieur, the notions you term 'Regency' are quite out of date at a time when a man is taken at his personal worth; and that is what you did when you married your daughter to my son." "But you do not know how the marriage was brought about!" cried Crevel. "Oh, that cursed bachelor life! But for my misconduct, my Celestine might at this day be Vicomtesse Popinot!"
Célestine just took a fancy to him because he talks French like a native, and she would always be holding him up for a gossip. French servants are quite unlike English that way. And servant or no servant," added Mr. Bunner with emphasis, "I don't see how a woman could mention such a subject to a man. But the French beat me." He shook his head slowly.
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