And, besides, each had his reasons for hurrying—­Saniel, for fear of the lamps; Balzajette, uneasiness for his dinner.  The diagnosis and the treatment were rapidly settled; Saniel proposed, Balzajette approved.  The question of the movable stove was decided in two words:  for the night a grate would be placed in the chimney; a fire of coal covered with damp coal-dust would keep the fire until morning.

“Let us return,” Balzajette said, who took the initiative and decided on all material things.

Saniel, who kept his eyes on the windows, was calm; it was yet too light to need lamps, besides, during their tete-a-tete, no servant had crossed the salon to enter Madame Dammauville’s room.

But when Balzajette opened the door to return to the patient, a flood of light filled the parlor and enveloped them.  A lamp with a shade was placed on the little table near the bed, and two other lighted lamps with globes were on the mantel, reflecting their light in the mirror.  How had he not foreseen that there was another door to Madame Dammauville’s room besides the door from the parlor?  But if he had foreseen it, it would not have lessened the danger of the situation.

He would have had time to prepare himself, that was all.  But to prepare himself for what?  Either to enter the room and brave this danger, or to fly.  He entered.

“This is what we have decided,” Balzajette said, who never lost an occasion to put himself forward and to speak.

While he spoke, Madame Dammauville seemed not to listen to him.  Her eyes were on Saniel, placed beween her and the chimney with his back to the lamps, and she looked at him with a characteristic fixedness.

Balzajette, who listened to himself, observed nothing; but Saniel, who knew what there was behind this glance, could not but be struck with it.  Happily for him, he had only to let Balzajette talk, for if he had spoken he would surely have betrayed himself by the quivering of his voice.

However, Balzajette seemed coming to the end of his explanations.  Suddenly Saniel saw Madame Dammauville extend her hand toward the lamp on the table, and raise the shade by lowering it toward her in such a way as to form a reflector that threw the light on him.  At the same time he received a bright ray full on his face.

Madame Dammauville uttered a small, stifled cry.

Balzajette stopped; then his astonished eyes went from Madame Dammauville to Saniel, and front Saniel to Madame Dammauville.

“Are you suffering?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

What, then, was the matter?  But it was seldom that he asked for an explanation of a thing that astonished him, preferring to divine and to explain it himself.

“Ah!  I understand it,” he said with a satisfied smile.

“The youth of my young ‘confrere’ astonishes you.  It is his fault.  Why the devil did he have his long hair and his light curled beard cut?”