“Oh! you’re telling a fib; your hands are like ice!  Come nearer, or I shall get vexed.”

It was now his turn to display his anxious care.

“I could lay a wager they haven’t left you any drink.  I’ll run and make some for you; would you like it?  Oh!  I’m a good hand at making it.  You would see, if I were your nurse, you wouldn’t be without anything you wanted.”

He did not allow himself any more explicit hint.  Jeanne somewhat sharply declared she was disgusted with tisane; she was compelled to drink too much of it.  However, now and then she would allow Monsieur Rambaud to flutter round her like a mother; he would slip a pillow under her shoulders, give her the medicine that she had almost forgotten, or carry her into the bedroom in his arms.  These little acts of devotion thrilled both with tenderness.  As Jeanne eloquently declared with her sombre eyes, whose flashes disturbed the old man so sorely, they were playing the parts of the father and the little girl while her mother was absent.  Then, however, sadness would all at once fall upon them; their talk died away, and they glanced at one another stealthily with pitying looks.

That afternoon, after a lengthy silence, the child asked the question which she had already put to her mother:  “Is Italy far away?”

“Oh!  I should think so,” replied Monsieur Rambaud.  “It’s away over yonder, on the other side of Marseilles, a deuce of a distance!  Why do you ask me such a question?”

“Oh! because—­” she began gravely.  But she burst into loud complaints at her ignorance.  She was always ill, and she had never been sent to school.  Then they both became silent again, lulled into forgetfulness by the intense heat of the fire.

In the meantime Helene had found Madame Deberle and her sister Pauline in the Japanese pavilion where they so frequently whiled away the afternoon.  Inside it was very warm, a heating apparatus filled it with a stifling atmosphere.

The large windows were shut, and a full view could be had of the little garden, which, in its winter guise, looked like some large sepia drawing, finished with exquisite delicacy, the little black branches of the trees showing clear against the brown earth.  The two sisters were carrying on a sharp controversy.

“Now, be quiet, do!” exclaimed Juliette; “it is evidently our interest to support Turkey.”

“Oh!  I’ve had a talk about it with a Russian,” replied Pauline, who was equally excited.  “We are much liked at St. Petersburg, and it is only there that we can find our proper allies.”

Juliette’s face assumed a serious look, and, crossing her arms, she exclaimed:  “Well, and what will you do with the balance of power in Europe?”

The Eastern crisis was the absorbing topic in Paris at that moment;[*] it was the stock subject of conversation, and no woman who pretended to any position could speak with propriety of anything else.  Thus, for two days past, Madame Deberle had with passionate fervor devoted herself to foreign politics.  Her ideas were very pronounced on the various eventualities which might arise; and Pauline greatly annoyed her by her eccentricity in advocating Russia’s cause in opposition to the clear interests of France.  Juliette’s first desire was to convince her of her folly, but she soon lost her temper.