"C'est une grande responsabilite, que la surveillance," observed I.
"Plait-il?" dit M. Pelet.
I remarked that I thought Messieurs Vandam and Kint must sometimes be a little fatigued with their labours.
"Des betes de somme,--des betes de somme," murmured scornfully the director. Meantime I offered him his cup of coffee.
"Servez-vous mon garcon," said he blandly, when I had put a couple of huge lumps of continental sugar into his cup. "And now tell me why you stayed so long at Mdlle. Reuter's. I know that lessons conclude, in her establishment as in mine, at four o'clock, and when you returned it was past five."
"Mdlle. wished to speak with me, monsieur."
"Indeed! on what subject? if one may ask."
"Mademoiselle talked about nothing, monsieur."
"A fertile topic! and did she discourse thereon in the schoolroom, before the pupils?"
"No; like you, monsieur, she asked me to walk into her parlour."
"And Madame Reuter--the old duenna--my mother's gossip, was there, of course?"
"No, monsieur; I had the honour of being quite alone with mademoiselle."
"C'est joli--cela," observed M. Pelet, and he smiled and looked into the fire.
"Honi soit qui mal y pense," murmured I, significantly.
"Je connais un peu ma petite voisine--voyez-vous."
"In that case, monsieur will be able to aid me in finding out what was mademoiselle's reason for making me sit before her sofa one mortal hour, listening to the most copious and fluent dissertation on the merest frivolities."
"She was sounding your character."
"I thought so, monsieur."
"Did she find out your weak point?"
"What is my weak point?"
"Why, the sentimental. Any woman sinking her shaft deep enough, will at last reach a fathomless spring of sensibility in thy breast, Crimsworth."
I felt the blood stir about my heart and rise warm to my cheek.
"Some women might, monsieur."
"Is Mdlle. Reuter of the number? Come, speak frankly, mon fils; elle est encore jeune, plus agee que toi peut-etre, mais juste asset pour unir la tendresse d'une petite maman a l'amour d'une epouse devouee; n'est-ce pas que cela t'irait superieurement?"
"No, monsieur; I should like my wife to be my wife, and not half my mother."
"She is then a little too old for you?"
"No, monsieur, not a day too old if she suited me in other things."
"In what does she not suit you, William? She is personally agreeable, is she not?"