She had been visible a few days later than the Corporal,—sadly deteriorated as to washing and brushing,—but she had not spoken when addressed by Mr. The Englishman, and had looked scared and had run away. And now it would seem that she had run away for good. And there lay the Great Place under the windows, bare and barren.
In his shamefaced and constrained way, Mr. The Englishman asked no question of any one, but watched from his front windows and watched from his back windows, and lingered about the Place, and peeped in at the Barber’s shop, and did all this and much more with a whistling and tune-humming pretence of not missing anything, until one afternoon when Monsieur Mutuel’s patch of sunlight was in shadow, and when, according to all rule and precedent, he had no right whatever to bring his red ribbon out of doors, behold here he was, advancing with his cap already in his hand twelve paces off!
Mr. The Englishman had got as far into his usual objurgation as, “What bu-si—” when he checked himself.
“Ah, it is sad, it is sad! Hélas, it is unhappy, it is sad!” Thus old Monsieur Mutuel, shaking his gray head.
“What busin—at least, I would say, what do you mean, Monsieur Mutuel?”
“Our Corporal. Hélas, our dear Corporal!”
“What has happened to him?”
“You have not heard?”
“No.”
“At the fire. But he was so brave, so ready. Ah, too brave, too ready!”