"Ah, pardon me, mon ami," interposed the Chevalier de la Vireville quickly, "you underrate your importance. There are people who would find it quite interesting if they knew of it—our dear compatriots of the Committee of Public Safety in Paris, for instance. And they have spies in the most unlikely places."
"But not in this house," said René, throwing himself into a chair.
"Perhaps not," agreed his friend. "I should certainly not suspect Elspeth or that Indian of M. votre beau-père of selling information. As to the others, I do not know."
M. de Flavigny was perfectly right; there was no spy in Mr. Elphinstone's house at the moment. He did not know that the unsatisfactoriness of the destitute French lad, whom Mr. Elphinstone (out of the kindness of his heart and on Baptiste's suggestion) had seen fit to engage for some obscure minor office in the kitchen regions, had that day reached such a culminating point as to lead to his summary dismissal, and that he was at that very moment preparing to carry his unsatisfactoriness and other useful possessions—including a torn-up letter in de Flavigny's handwriting—to some destination unknown.
CHAPTER III
Purchase of a Goldfish, and other Important Matters
(1)
Four days later Mr. Elphinstone and his grandson were breakfasting alone in the room where Anne-Hilarion had remained, so unsuitably attired, to hear matters not primarily intended for the ears of little boys. And now the Comte de Flavigny was seated again at that very table, his legs dangling, eating his porridge, not with any great appetite, but because it was commanded him.
And Mr. Elphinstone did the same, glancing across now and again with his kind blue eyes to observe his grandson's progress. The suns of India, where so much of his life had been passed, had done little more than fade his apple cheeks to a complexion somewhat less sanguine than would have been theirs under Scottish skies. His very precise British attire bore no traces of his long sojourn in the East, save that the brooch in the lace at his throat was of Oriental workmanship, and that the pigeon's-blood ruby on his finger had an exotic look—and an equally exotic history. Anne-Hilarion knew that it had been given by a rajah to his grandfather, instead of an elephant, and never ceased to regret so disastrous a preference.
If James Elphinstone had known, when he left India, that in years to come an elephant would be so fervently desired in Cavendish Square, it is possible that he might have considered the bringing of one with him, such was his attitude (justly condemned by Mrs. Saunders) towards Janet's child. At this moment, in fact, he was meditating some extra little pleasure for Anne-Hilarion, to make up for his father's departure of two days ago. M. le Comte, though he had a certain philosophical turn of mind of his own, fretted a good deal after M. le Marquis, and his grandfather was wondering whether to assign to that cause the very slow rate at which his porridge was disappearing this morning.