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Not long after he found the Cervins' door open as he passed, and in the passage saw a group of people, mostly men; Montjoie in front, just lighting a cigar; Louie's black hat in the background. David hurried past; he loathed the sculptor's battered look, his insolent eye, his slow ambiguous manner; he still burnt with the anger and humiliation of his ineffectual descent on the man's domain.
'Monsieur David, warn your sister that that man with the Cervins this morning the man in grey, the sculptor, M. Montjoie is a disreputable scoundrel that no decent woman should know. David was taken aback. 'And Madame Cervin Elise raised her shoulders. 'I don't offer a solution, she said; 'but I have warned you. 'Monsieur Cervin has a somewhat strange appearance, said David, hesitating.
She declared that she had hardly slept a wink; that the bed was not fit to sleep on; that the cupboard was alive with mice, and smelt intolerably. David first endeavoured to appease her with the coffee and rolls which had just arrived, and then he broached the plan of sending her to board with the Cervins, which Mademoiselle Delaunay had suggested. What did she think?
Louie stood in an impatient silence while she was being thus talked over, exchanging looks from time to time with the two artists, who had retired a little behind Mademoiselle Delaunay's easel, and from that distance were perfectly competent to let the bold-eyed English girl know what they thought of her charms. At last the bargain was concluded, and the Cervins walked away with Louie in charge.
After that day in the Louvre her native shrewdness had of course very soon informed her of David's infatuation for the little artist. And when it became plain, not only to her, but to all Elise Delaunay's acquaintance, there was much laughter and gossip on the subject in the Cervins' apartment.
When he had arrived the night before at the house in the Rue Chantal, Madame Merichat could tell him nothing of Mademoiselle Delaunay, who had not been heard of. Then he asked, his voice dying in his throat before the woman's hard and cynical stare the stare of one who found the chief savour of life in the misfortunes of her kind he asked for his sister and the Cervins.
Louie pushed past her, flew downstairs, and rang the Cervins' bell violently. Madame Cervin herself opened the door, and the girl threw herself upon her, dragged her into the salon, and then said with the look and tone of a fury: 'Read that! She held out the crumbled letter. Madame Cervin adjusted her spectacles with shaking hands. 'But it is in English! she cried in despair.
I know how to protect myself; none of the men I meet dare to insult me; that is my idiosyncrasy everyone has his own. But I have my ideas, and nobody else matters a fig to me. So now, Monsieur, if you regret our forced introduction of last night, let me wish you a good morning. It will be perfectly easy for your sister to find some excuse to leave the Cervins.
The Cervins were staying at Sevres with relations, and were expected home again in a day or two; Mademoiselle Louie? well, Mademoiselle Louie was not with them. Had she gone back to England? Mais non! A trunk of hers was still in the Cervins' vestibule. Did Madame Merichat know anything about her? the lad asked, forcing himself to it, his blanched face turned away.
And he carried her off a few yards, while the Cervins came up and greeted the group round the Infanta. A powerfully built, thickset man, in a grey suit, who had been walking with them, fell back as they joined Elise Delaunay, and began to examine a Pieter de Hooghe with minuteness. Meanwhile David wrestled with his sister.
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