“Are you composing?” asked a voice like that of a ventriloquist; “I am with you.”

A minute later, Marillac appeared upon the threshold, in his slippers and with a silk handkerchief tied about his head, holding his candlestick in one hand and a pipe in the other; he stood there motionless.

“You are fine,” said he, “you are magnificent, fatal and accursed—­You remind me of Kean in Othello—­

        “Have you pray’d to-night, Desdemona?”

Gerfaut gazed at him with frowning brows, but made no reply.

“I will wager that it is the last scene in our third act,” replied the artist, placing his candlestick upon the mantel; “it seems that it is to be very tragic.  Now listen!  I also feel the poetical afflatus coming over me, and, if you like, we will set about devouring paper like two boa-constrictors.  Speaking of serpents, have you a rattle?  Ah, yes!  Here is the bell-rope.  I was about to say that we would have a bowl of coffee.  Or rather, I will go into the kitchen myself; I am very good friends with Marianne, the cook; besides, the motto of the house of Bergenheim is liberte, libertas.  Coffee is my muse; in this respect, I resemble Voltaire—­”

“Marillac!” exclaimed Gerfaut, as the artist was about to leave the room.  The artist turned, and meekly retraced his steps.

“You will be so good as to do me the favor of returning to your room,” said Gerfaut.  “You may work or you may sleep, just as you like; between us, you would do well to sleep.  I wish to be alone.”

“You say that as if you meditated an attempt upon your illustrious person.  Are you thinking of suicide?  Let us see whether you have some concealed weapon, some poisoned ring.  Curse upon it! the poison of the Borgias!  Is the white substance in this china bowl, vulgarly called sugar, by some terrible chance infamous arsenic disguised under the appearance of an honest colonial commodity?”

“Be kind enough to spare your jokes,” said Octave, as his friend poked about in all the corners of the room with an affectation of anxiety, “and, as I can not get rid of you, listen to my opinion:  if you think that I brought you here for you to conduct yourself as you have for the last two days, you are mistaken.”

“What have I done?”

“You left me the whole morning with that tiresome Bergenheim on my hands, and I verily believe he made me count every stick in his park and every frog in his pond.  Tonight, when that old witch of Endor proposed her infernal game of whist, to which it seems I am to be condemned daily, you-excused yourself upon the pretext of ignorance, and yet you play as good a game as I.”

“I can not endure whist at twenty sous a point.”

“Do I like it any better?”

“Well, you are a nice fellow!  You have an object in view which should make you swallow all these disagreeable trifles as if they were as sweet as honey.  Is it possible you would like me to play Bertrand and Raton?  I should be Raton the oftener of the two!”