"Yes, that is her mother; she is staying there with her mother, so you must ask for the elder lady. Madame Seraskier knows all about this business, so you need not hesitate to hand the letter to Mademoiselle Seraskier in her presence."
"I will do it," said Jacques.
He got an hour's leave that afternoon and started off for Sidi-bel-Abbès.
Sidi-bel-Abbès is slashed across like a hot cross bun by two boulevards, one running north and south, the other east and west. The Hôtel d'Oran is situated near the junction of these boulevards, and when Jacques arrived there, he found after numerous inquiries that Madame Seraskier was at home. I say numerous inquiries, for in the hotels of Sidi-bel-Abbès nobody seems to know anything about anything, the Arab khayf seems to have stolen into the mental atmosphere of the business world, nobody seems capable of exertion or surprise, and if you were to ask the lady clerk of the Hôtel d'Oran as she sits in her glass-fronted office, "Madame, has a dromedary gone upstairs?" I am perfectly sure she would reply, without even raising those jet-black eyebrows of hers, "Monsieur, I do not know—but I will ask." Jacques was shown up to the first floor and into a private sitting-room, where an old lady and a young lady were seated, one reading a novel and the other writing a letter.
He told of his mission with military brevity, and stood whilst the young woman opened and read through the letter.
His mission was over with its delivery, yet he waited, scarcely knowing why, half expecting that some verbal message would be given to him, half held perhaps by his interest in the girl, who was very good-looking yet spoiled in his eyes by a business-like and decided manner evident in every movement.
"Thank you," said Mademoiselle Seraskier, as she finished reading and handed the letter to the elder woman. "It is most good of you to have brought this. There is no reply."
"No reply," said Jacques. He was thinking if this were so everything was indeed up with this unfortunate love affair, and his interest in his good friend Schneider made him bold.
"You will excuse me, mademoiselle," said he; "I am only a common soldier and Monsieur Schneider is a gentleman, as is easily to be seen, still he is my friend, and the welfare of my friend touches me. He has been in the Legion some months now and he stands the life all right; but it is in another six months or a year that the harness will begin to rub. I know, for I have seen it in many a man like him. The Legion tells, and the more a gentleman a man is, the sooner it breaks him. Then he goes cafard and shoots someone, or else he tries to escape and gets hauled back. All this happens unless he has some interest outside the Legion to hold him back and keep him quiet."
Jacques paused. He was a very blunt-speaking person and his shyness before the ladies was dissipated by the sound of his own voice; besides, he had a purpose.