"Ah, the doctor!" sniffed Madame Garneau disdainfully. "I have my opinion of doctors! In two or three days it will be time enough!" She wagged her forefinger again, and held up the bag. "Eh, bien—can you guess?"
"Never!" admitted Marie-Louise, shaking her head prettily.
"Cream-puffs!" announced Madame Garneau triumphantly. It was perhaps the most indigestible edible with which she could have outraged a diet list, but in that quarter of Paris, where sous were scarce, cream-puffs were the delicacy par excellence, and therefore a delicacy for all occasions, rare enough in any event, when they could be obtained. And besides, as Madame Garneau had said, she had her opinion of doctors—Madame Garneau, even if unconsciously so, was consistent! "Cream-puffs, ma petite! From the patisserie around the corner—I sent the gamin, who brought the message from Father Anton, for them. And now what do you say?"
Marie-Louise had neither heart nor appetite for cream-puffs, but she must needs peek excitedly in through the top of the bag, and thank Madame Garneau effusively, while she protested earnestly at the extravagance.
"It is nothing!" declared Madame Garneau, her honest face flushed with pleasure. She placed the bag on the foot of the bed. "It is nothing—ma foi! And now about Father Anton. He was to have come this afternoon, eh?"
"Yes," said Marie-Louise.
"Well, then," said Madame Garneau, "he is not coming."
"Not coming!"
"It is his poor!" Madame Garneau exclaimed tartly. "Your Father Anton has no sense! I would teach him a lesson if I had anything to do with him! Fancy! The idea! And at his age! He will kill himself! The gamin's mother was sick, and Father Anton must sit up the night, and stay there all this day! And it is not once, but all the time he does that! Bah, I have no patience with him! His heart is too soft! It is well for his poor that I am not Father Anton!" There was finality in the shrug of Madame Garneau's shoulders. She glanced at Marie-Louise, and then her eyes fell upon the paper bag. "Oh, I forgot to tell you!" she said anxiously. "There is a cream-puff gone from the quarter-dozen. I gave one to the gamin, he made such eyes at the bag." She tucked in a refractory wisp of hair that was straying over her ear. "Well, then, as I was saying, he is not coming this afternoon, but he will come this evening; and he said you were not to worry at all, because what he was talking to you about yesterday—whatever that is!—is all arranged."
All arranged! It came as a sudden shock. Marie-Louise turned her head quickly away, and, with her back to Madame Garneau, stood looking out of the window. All arranged! Then what should she do—what should she do? She put her hands wearily to her eyes.