“And you are quite wrong, monsieur, in both your suppositions. I have not had any journey at all, and I am not a bit more fatigued than ordinarily. I suppose I am not so infirm that a walk home from Poissy is likely to prove fatal?”
“Oh, Poissy, is it!” exclaimed the doctor, preparing to escape. “No, no, my good friend; on the contrary, you are quite right to keep up the habit of exercise. But I must not stay gossiping when I have a pressing case in the Rue Royale. Adieu, adieu!”
“Now what takes him off as if the devil himself were at his heels?” muttered M. Bourget, looking after him discontentedly. “A pressing case indeed! If anything serious were the matter in the Rue Royale, it is quite certain that I should have heard of it by this time. The man was fooling me. He didn’t wish to talk about Poissy. And why?”
He marched on, his eyes on the ground, his under-lip thrust out. For the first time for six years he turned into another street to avoid passing the photographer’s window. He reached the café in a bad humour, tired, moreover, in spite of his disclaimer to the doctor, and dropped into a solitary chair, where he sat frowning and facing the street. As he anticipated, before he had been there five minutes M. Leroux approached. M. Bourget thumped the table to draw his attention.
“If you are going to order this poisonous stuff,” he said, “one table will do for us both. Sit there.”
But Leroux, sharp enough to see that he was wanted, was also sharp enough to improve the opportunity. He shook his head.
“I can’t afford to swallow coffee at a café, with all those mouths at home, and that’s the truth,” he said.
“You can sit, I suppose,” growled M. Bourget.
“Oh, I can sit, certainly. But I find it makes me thirsty to look at others drinking, and, by your leave, I’ll not stop to-day.”
For answer M. Bourget rapped his cup with his spoon, and extracted two sous from his pocket.