The next moment Saffron came through the archway, ascended the steps in turn—­but slowly and carefully, as if fearful of waking his guardian—­ and I heard his door closing, very gently.  Long before his arrival, however, I had been certain of his identity with the figure I had seen gazing up at the terraces of Quesnay from the borders of the grove.  Other questions remained to bother me:  Why had Keredec not prevented this night-roving, and why, since he did permit it, should he conceal his knowledge of it from Oliver?  And what, oh, what wondrous specific had the mighty man found for his disease?

Morning failed to clarify these mysteries; it brought, however, something rare and rich and strange.  I allude to the manner of Amedee’s approach.  The aged gossip-demoniac had to recognise the fact that he could not keep out of my way for ever; there was nothing for it but to put as good a face as possible upon a bad business, and get it over—­and the face he selected was a marvel; not less, and in no hasty sense of the word.

It appeared at my door to announce that breakfast waited outside.

Primarily it displayed an expression of serenity, masterly in its assumption that not the least, remotest, dreamiest shadow of danger could possibly be conceived, by the most immoderately pessimistic and sinister imagination, as even vaguely threatening.  And for the rest, you have seen a happy young mother teaching first steps to the first-born—­ that was Amedee.  Radiantly tender, aggressively solicitous, diffusing ineffable sweetness on the air, wreathed in seraphic smiles, beaming caressingly, and aglow with a sacred joy that I should be looking so well, he greeted me in a voice of honey and bowed me to my repast with an unconcealed fondness at once maternal and reverential.

I did not attempt to speak.  I came out silently, uncannily fascinated, my eyes fixed upon him, while he moved gently backward, cooing pleasant words about the coffee, but just perceptibly keeping himself out of arm’s reach until I had taken my seat.  When I had done that, he leaned over the table and began to set useless things nearer my plate with frankly affectionate care.  It chanced that in “making a long arm” to reach something I did want, my hand (of which the fingers happened to be closed) passed rather impatiently beneath his nose.  The madonna expression changed instantly to one of horror, he uttered a startled croak, and took a surprisingly long skip backward, landing in the screen of honeysuckle vines, which, he seemed to imagine, were some new form of hostility attacking him treacherously from the rear.  They sagged, but did not break from their fastenings, and his behaviour, as he lay thus entangled, would have contrasted unfavourably in dignity with the actions of a panic-stricken hen in a hammock.

“And so conscience does make cowards of us all,” I said, with no hope of being understood.

Recovering some measure of mental equilibrium at the same time that he managed to find his feet, he burst into shrill laughter, to which he tried in vain to impart a ring of debonair carelessness.