I was a thousand miles from guessing what he thought. He thought of Mere Bernier’s bag of potatoes which he emptied out on the white floor of the room to the great amazement of the good woman; then, satisfied with this act which evidently corresponded to the state of his mind, he returned with me to the Court of the Bold, while, behind us, we could hear Pere Bernier laughing as he picked up the potatoes.
As we reached the court we saw the face of Mme. Darzac appearing for a moment at the window of the room occupied by her father on the first story of “la Louve.”
The heat had become insupportable. We were threatened with a violent storm and we believed that it would begin to lighten immediately.
Ah, how much the storm would relieve us, we thought. The sea had a thick and heavy quietude as though it had been saturated with oil. The sea was heavy and the air was heavy and our hearts were heavy. No one or nothing on the earth or in the heavens was lighter than Old Bob, whose form had appeared again at the edge of the Barma Grande and who was still moving around agitatedly. One would have said that he was dancing. No, he was making a speech! To whom? We leaned over the railing to see. There was apparently some one upon the strand to whom Old Bob was addressing some long-winded scientific discourse. But the palm leaves hid his auditor from us. Finally, the listener moved and advanced, and approached the “black professor,” as Rouletabille called him. And we saw that Old Bob’s congregation was composed of two persons. One was Mme. Edith—we could easily recognize her with her languishing graces, clinging like a vine to her husband’s arm. To her husband’s arm! But this was not her husband? Who, then, was the young man upon whom Mme. Edith was playing off so many pretty airs?
Rouletabille turned around, looking for someone of whom to make inquiries—either Mattoni or Bernier. We saw Bernier upon the threshold of the door of the Square Tower and Rouletabille beckoned him. Bernier approached and his eye followed the direction indicated by Rouletabille’s finger.
“Who is that with Mme. Rance?” asked the young reporter.
“The young man?” responded Bernier without hesitation. “That is Prince Galitch.”
Rouletabille and I looked at each other. It is true that we had never seen Prince Galitch walking at a distance, but I would not have imagined that his manner of walking would be like this, and he had not seemed to me to be so tall. Rouletabille understood my thoughts, I knew. He shrugged his shoulders.
“All right,” he said to Bernier. “Thanks.”
And we continued to gaze at Mme. Edith and her Prince.