“All is going on well, but it will take some time,” he went on. “Let me have one of your dressing-gowns. I shall be more comfortable for the night, and these ladies will excuse me, will they not?”
“Excuse you, I should think so, you, the doctor, and my friend!” I felt devotedly attached to him that evening.
“Well, then, if they will excuse me, you can very well let me have a pair of slippers.”
At this moment a cry came from the next room and we distinctly heard these words in a stifled voice:
“Doctor... oh! mon Dieu!... doctor!”
“It is frightful,” murmured my aunts.
“My dear friend,” I exclaimed, seizing the doctor’s arm, “you are quite sure you are not concealing anything from me?”
“If you have a very loose pair they will suit me best; I have not the foot of a young girl.... I am not concealing anything, I am not concealing anything.... What do you think I should hide from you? It is all going on very well, only as I said it will take time—By the way, tell Joseph to get me one of your smokingcaps; once in dressing-gown and slippers a smokingcap is not out of the way, and I am getting bald, my dear Captain. How infernally cold it is here! These windows face the north, and there are no sand-bags. Mademoiselle de V.,” he added, turning to my aunt, “you will catch cold.”
Then as other sounds were heard, he said: “Let us go and see the little lady.”
“Come here,” said my wife, who had caught sight of me, in a low voice, “come here and shake hands with me.” Then she drew me toward her and whispered in my ear: “You will be pleased to kiss the little darling, won’t you?” Her voice was so faint and so tender as she said this, and she added: “Do not take your hand away, it gives me courage.”