“I shall have the honor to be with you at the hour named,” he replied ceremoniously.

“Rue Pigalle,” said Maxime, “No. 6.”

“Yes, I know,” returned Massol,—­“a few steps from the corner of the rue de la Rochefoucauld.”

VIII

SOME OLD ACQUAINTANCES

A few evenings after the one on which Sallenauve and Marie-Gaston had taken Jacques Bricheteau to Saint-Sulpice to hear the Signora Luigia’s voice, the church was the scene of a curious little incident that passed by almost wholly unperceived.  A young man entered hastily by a side-door; he seemed agitated, and so absorbed in some anxiety that he forgot to remove his hat.  The beadle caught him by the arm, and his face became livid, but, turning round, he saw at once that his fears were causeless.

“Is your hat glued on your head, young man?” said the beadle, pompously.

“Oh, pardon me, monsieur,” he replied, snatching it off; “I forgot myself.”

Then he slipped into the thickest of the crowd and disappeared.

A few seconds after the irruption of this youth the same door gave access to a man around whose powerful, seamed face was the collar of a white beard, which, combined with a thick shock of hair, also white but slightly reddish in tone and falling almost to his shoulders, gave him very much the air of an old Conventional, or a Bernardin de Saint-Pierre who had had the small-pox.  His face and his hair placed him in the sixties, but his robust figure, the energetic decision of his movements, and, above all, the piercing keenness of the glance which he cast about him on entering the church, showed a powerful organization on which the passage of years had made little or no impression.  No doubt, he was in search of the young fellow who had preceded him; but he did not commit the mistake of entering the crowd, where he knew of course that the youth had lost himself.  Like a practised hunter, he saw that pursuit was useless, and he was just about to leave the church when, after a short organ prelude, the contralto of the signora delivering its solemn notes gave forth that glorious harmony to which is sung the Litany of the Virgin.  The beauty of the voice, the beauty of the chant, the beauty of the words of the sacred hymn, which the fine method of the singer brought out distinctly, made a singular impression on the stalwart stranger.  Instead of leaving the church, he put himself in the shadow of a column, against which he leaned as he stood; but as the last notes of the divine canticle died away among the arches of the church, he knelt on the pavement, and whoever had chanced to look that way would have seen two heavy tears rolling slowly down his cheeks.  The benediction given, and the crowd dispersing, he rose, wiped his eyes, and, muttering, “What a fool I am!” left the church.  Then he went to the Place Saint-Sulpice, and, beckoning to a coach on the stand, he said to the driver,—­

“Rue de Provence, my man, quick! there’s fat in it.”