“The scoundrel! The blackguard!” I exclaimed in an unguarded outburst of fury. . . .
“Your pardon, Mademoiselle,” I added more calmly, seeing that the lovely creature was gazing at me with eyes full of astonishment not unmixed with distrust, “I am anticipating. Am I to understand, then, that you have made your home with this Mr. Farewell?”
“Yes, Monsieur, at number sixty-five Rue des Pyramides.”
“Is he a married man?” I asked casually.
“He is a widower, Monsieur.”
“Middle-aged?”
“Quite elderly, Monsieur.”
I could have screamed with joy. I was not yet forty myself.
“Why!” she added gaily, “he is thinking of retiring from business—he is, as I said, a commercial traveller—in favour of his nephew, M. Adrien Cazales.”
Once more I had to steady myself against the table. The room swam round me. One hundred thousand francs!—a lovely creature!—an unscrupulous widower!—an equally dangerous young nephew. I rose and tottered to the window. I flung it wide open—a thing I never do save at moments of acute crises.
The breath of fresh air did me good. I returned to my desk, and was able once more to assume my habitual dignity and presence of mind.
“In all this, Mademoiselle,” I said in my best professional manner, “I do not gather how I can be of service to you.”
“I am coming to that, Monsieur,” she resumed after a slight moment of hesitation, even as an exquisite blush suffused her damask cheeks. “You must know that at first I was very happy in the house of my new guardian. He was exceedingly kind to me, though there were times already when I fancied . . .”
She hesitated—more markedly this time—and the blush became deeper on her cheeks. I groaned aloud.
“Surely he is too old,” I suggested.
“Much too old,” she assented emphatically.
Once more I would have screamed with joy had not a sharp pang, like a dagger-thrust, shot through my heart.
“But the nephew, eh?” I said as jocosely, as indifferently as I could. “Young M. Cazales? What?”
“Oh!” she replied with perfect indifference. “I hardly ever see him.”
Unfortunately it were not seemly for an avocat and the agent confidentiel of half the Courts of Europe to execute the measures of a polka in the presence of a client, or I would indeed have jumped up and danced with glee. The happy thoughts were hammering away in my mind: “The old one is much too old—the young one she never sees!” and I could have knelt down and kissed the hem of her gown for the exquisite indifference with which she had uttered those magic words: “Oh! I hardly ever see him!”—words which converted my brightest hopes into glowing possibilities.
But, as it was, I held my emotions marvellously in check, and with perfect sang-froid once more asked the beauteous creature how I could be of service to her in her need.