The gentleman was there, he insisted on seeing madame.
“You have told him the doctor is travelling?”
He had been told, but it was to madame he wished to speak.
“To me?”
Disturbed, she examined this rough, crumpled card, this unknown name: “Heurteux.” What could it be?
“Well, show him in.”
Heurteux, business agent, coming from broad daylight into the semi-obscurity of the room, was blinking with an uncertain air, trying to see. She, on the other hand, saw very distinctly a stiff figure, with iron-gray whiskers and protruding jaw, one of those hangers-on of the law whom one meets round the law courts, born fifty years old, with a bitter mouth, an envious air, and a morocco portfolio under the arm. He sat down on the edge of the chair which she pointed out to him, turned his head to make sure that the servant had gone out, then opened his portfolio methodically to search for a paper. Seeing that he did not speak, she began in a tone of impatience:
“I ought to warn you, sir, that my husband is absent, and that I am not acquainted with his business.”
Without any astonishment, his hand in his papers, the man answered: “I know that M. Jenkins is absent, madame”—he emphasized more particularly the two words “M. Jenkins”—“especially as I come on his behalf.”
She looked at him frightened. “On his behalf?”