“Have I then sunk so low as to read private communications or pry into family secrets? Is it a family secret, though? Should it not become common property? Why have they protected him? Did the marquis wish to spare the son of an old friend? Besides”––his glance again seeking the envelope––“it is my privilege to learn whether I have fought with a 288 gentleman or a renegade.” But even as he meditated, he felt the sophistry of this last argument, while through his brain ran the undercurrent: “He has wooed her––won her, perhaps!” Passion, rather than injured hauteur, stirred him. At the same time a great indignation filled his breast; how Saint-Prosper had tricked her and turned her from himself!
And moving from the mantel upon which he was leaning, Mauville strode to the table and untied the envelope.
CHAPTER VII
A CYNICAL BARD
A dusty window looking out upon a dusty thoroughfare; a dusty room, lighted by the dusty window, and revealing a dusty chair, a dusty carpet and––probably––a dusty bed! Over the foot and the head of the bed the lodger’s wardrobe lay carelessly thrown. He had but to reach up, and lo! his shirt was at hand; to reach down, and there were collar and necktie! Presto, he was dressed, without getting out of bed, running no risk from cold floors for cold feet, lurking tacks or stray needles and pins! On every side appeared evidence of confusion, or a bachelor’s idea of order.
Fastened to the head-board of the bed was a box, wherein were stored various and divers articles and things. With as little inconvenience as might be imagined the lodger could plunge his hand into his cupboard and pull out a pipe, a box of matches, a bottle of ink, a bottle of something else, paper and pins, and, last but not least, his beloved tin whistle of three holes, variously dignified a fretiau, a frestele, or a galoubet, upon which he played ravishing tunes.
Oh, a wonderful box was Straws’ little bedstead cupboard! As Phazma said of it, it contained everything it should not, and nothing it should contain. But that was why it was a poet’s box. If it had held a Harpagon’s Interest Computer, instead of a well-thumbed Virgil, or Oldcodger’s Commercial Statistics for 184––, instead of an antique, leather-covered Montaigne, Straws would have had no use for the cupboard. It was at once his library––a scanty one, for the poet held tenaciously to but a few books––his sideboard, his secrétaire, his music cabinet––giving lodgment in this last capacity to a single work, “The Complete and Classical Preceptor for Galoubet, Containing Tunes, Polkas and Military Pieces.”