She smiled almost as gravely, and with a much kinder expression than any she had bestowed upon the Frenchman.
"And how has madame fared during my absence so long? The servants—have they been respectful? Have they been observant? Have they been obedient to the will of madame? Madame has but to speak!" said the doctor, bowing politely.
"Why should I speak when every word I utter you believe, or affect to believe, to be the ravings of a maniac? I will speak no more," said the lady, turning away her superb dark eyes and looking out of the window.
"Ah, madame will not so punish her friend, her servant, her slave!"
A gesture of fierce impatience and disgust was the only reply deigned by the lady.
"Come away; she is angry and may become dangerously excited," said the old doctor, leading the way from the cell.
"Did you tell me this lady is one of the incurables?" inquired Traverse, when they had left her apartment.
"Bah! yes, poor girl, vera incurable, as my sister would say."
"Yet she appears to me to be perfectly sane, as well as exceedingly beautiful and interesting."
"Ah, bah; my excellent, my admirable, my inexperienced young friend, that is all you know of lunatics! With more or less violence of assertion, they every one insist upon their sanity, just as criminals protest their innocence. Ah, bah! you shall go into every cell in this ward and find not one lunatic among them," sneered the old doctor, as he led the way into the next little room.