“All that is most serious,” she replied.
“And you ill! Ah, the wretch! Ah, the wretch! That, for example!” He waved his hat about.
“What is it you want, Chirac?” she demanded, in a confidential tone.
“Eh, well,” said Chirac. “You do not know where he has gone?”
“No. What do you want?” she insisted.
He was nervous. He fidgetted. She guessed that, though warm with sympathy for her plight, he was preoccupied by interests and apprehensions of his own. He did not refuse her request temporarily to leave the astonishing matter of her situation in order to discuss the matter of his visit.
“Eh, well! He came to me yesterday afternoon in the Rue Croissant to borrow some money.”
She understood then the object of Gerald’s stroll on the previous afternoon.
“I hope you didn’t lend him any,” she said.
“Eh, well! It was like this. He said he ought to have received five thousand francs yesterday morning, but that he had had a telegram that it would not arrive till to-day. And he had need of five hundred francs at once. I had not five hundred francs”—he smiled sadly, as if to insinuate that he did not handle such sums—“but I borrowed it from the cashbox of the journal. It is necessary, absolutely, that I should return it this morning.” He spoke with increased seriousness. “Your husband said he would take a cab and bring me the money immediately on the arrival of the post this morning—about nine o’clock. Pardon me for deranging you with such a——”