"Come to the point!" retorted the elder Marot, impatiently. "The woman! Where is the woman?"
Jean reddened more furiously and was more confused than before.
"It can't be this—this"—he regarded the slender, girlish figure contemptuously—"this grisette ménagère! You are not such a fool as to——"
"Oh! no, no, no, no!" hastily interrupted Mlle. Fouchette, with great agitation. "Oh, no, monsieur! Think not that! She is an angel! I am nothing to him,—nothing! Only a poor little friend,—a servant, monsieur,—one who wishes him well and would do and give anything to see him happy! Nothing more, monsieur, I assure you! I—mon Dieu! nothing more!"
There was almost a wail in her last note of too much protestation.
Both father and son scrutinized her attentively, while the color came and went in her now downcast face,—the one with a puzzled astonishment, the other with surprised alarm.
And both understood.
Not being himself a lover, the elder Marot divined at once what Jean, with all his opportunities, had till now failed to discover.
Another pull at the bell came like a gift from heaven to momentarily relieve poor little Fouchette of her embarrassment.
Jean started nervously to his feet, in sympathy with her intelligence, but by no means relieved in mind.