“Did she ask where the other waiter was?”

“No, but the other ladies asked what had become of you several times.”

“And Madame said nothing?”

“She didn’t open her mouth, but looked sad and seemed to care for nothing, till I said you were away because you were ill.”

“That was stupid of you.  Why did you say that?”

“I had to say something.”

“True.  Did you untie her shoe?”

“No; she did not want me to do so.”

“Good.  Who told you her name?”

“Her coachman.  She is just married to a man older than herself.”

I went to bed, but could only think of the indiscretion and sadness of my fair lady.  I could not reconcile the two traits in her character.  Next day, knowing that she would be starting early, I posted myself at the window to see her get into the carriage, but I took care to arrange the curtain in such a way that I could not be seen.  Madame was the last to get in, and pretending that she wanted to see if it rained, she took off her bonnet and lifted her head.  Drawing the curtain with one hand, and taking off my cap with the other, I wafted her a kiss with the tips of my fingers.  In her turn she bowed graciously, returning my kiss with a good-natured smile.

CHAPTER XIV

I Leave Zurich—­Comic Adventure at Baden—­Soleure—­M.  De Chavigni—­M. and
Madame * * * I Act in a Play—­I Counterfeit Sickness to Attain Happiness

M. Mote, my landlord, introduced his two sons to me.  He had brought them up like young princes.  In Switzerland, an inn-keeper is not always a man of no account.  There are many who are as much respected as people of far higher rank are in other countries.  But each country has its own manners.  My landlord did the honours of the table, and thought it no degradation to make his guests pay for the meal.  He was right; the only really degrading thing in the world is vice.  A Swiss landlord only takes the chief place at table to see that everyone is properly attended to.  If he have a son, he does not sit down with his father, but waits on the guests, with napkin in hand.  At Schaffhaus, my landlord’s son, who was a captain in the Imperial army, stood behind my chair and changed my plate, while his father sat at the head of the table.  Anywhere else the son would have been waited on, but in his father’s house he thought, and rightly, that it was an honour to wait.

Such are Swiss customs, of which persons of superficial understanding very foolishly make a jest.  All the same, the vaunted honour and loyalty of the Swiss do not prevent them from fleecing strangers, at least as much as the Dutch, but the greenhorns who let themselves be cheated, learn thereby that it is well to bargain before-hand, and then they treat one well and charge reasonably.  In this way, when I was at Bale, I baffled the celebrated Imhoff, the landlord of the “Three Kings.”