"You are very kind."
Cynthia looked at him with a closer scrutiny. Certainly the M. Poizat who confronted her was the merest shadow of the sprightly inventor of Lungatine. The elasticity had gone from his wonderful legs. No longer he danced when he walked. His arms hung loose at his side, and the potency of his elixir had quite failed him. He was now a really old, small man. Indeed, he seemed to have diminished in stature and to have shrivelled in breadth; and his eyes were red, as though he had lately wept. Thus much had been taken from him. Yet something had been added, the dignity of a man whom calamity has overtaken.
"Why am I very kind to receive you?" Cynthia asked gently.
M. Poizat stared at her incredulously.
"Then you do not know what has happened to me?"
"No! Sit down and tell me."
But M. Poizat remained standing.
"I have no longer a friend in the world. I have no longer a house. I have no longer a wife. All is gone."
"I don't understand."
"Ah, I know. Ladies do not read their newspapers very carefully. If the men, too, were like you! But all the same you will have heard of a case which a few days ago was making a great stir in Paris--the Jobert case."