But I did not care. I was as fresh as a lark. Youth, good health, the absence of any earthly trouble, and the spirit of May, which peeped with the sun into the courtyard of the Hôtel de Chatellan, made life a thing worth waking up to.
But it was different with Joubert. He was yawning, and as sulky as any old servant could possibly be, as he put out my clothes and drew up the blind.
"Joubert," said I, sitting up in bed, "do you remember, nine years ago, when we were staying at the Schloss Lichtenberg, a little girl in a white dress and a blue scarf, and white pantalettes with frills to them?"
"Mordieu!" grumbled Joubert, putting out my razors. "Do I remember? Well, what about her?"
"I met her last night."
Joubert, who, with a towel over his arm, was just on the point of going into the bathroom adjoining, wheeled round.
"Met her! And where?"
"At a students' ball." Then I told him the whole business; told him of the ruin of the Felicianis, of the death of the Countess, of Eloise's forlorn position, and of the plans I had half made for her future; to all of which he listened without enthusiasm. "But that is not all," said I. And told him of my meeting with Franzius, the wandering musician whose music had held me in the gallery of the Schloss, whilst the assassin had been at work plunging his dagger into the pillow of my bed.
"You met him, and he brought you to the place where you met her," said Joubert when I had finished. "Mark me, something evil will come of this. Mon Dieu! the Lichtenbergs have not done with us yet. On the night before the General fought with Baron Imhoff he came to the Pavilion—you remember that night? He took me outside in the dark—you remember he took me out? And what said he? Ah, he said a lot. He said: 'Joubert, even if I fall to-morrow the Lichtenbergs will not have done with us. Fate, like an old damned mole'—those were his words—'has been working underground in the families of the Saluces and Lichtenbergs for three hundred years and more. She's showing her nose, and what will be the end of it the Virgin in heaven only can tell. If I fall, Joubert,' said he, 'I trust you to keep my boy apart from that child of Von Lichtenberg's they call Carl. Keep him apart from anyone who has ever had anything to do with the Lichtenbergs.' And look you," continued Joubert, "the first night you have liberty to go and amuse yourself, what happens? You meet two of the lot that were at the Schloss: one leads you to the other, and now you are going to set the girl up in the Pavilion. Think you I would mind if you filled the Pavilion with your girls, filled the chateau, stuffed the moat with them? Not I, but there you are: wagon-loads, army corps of girls to choose from, and you strike the one of all others—— Peste! and what's the use of my talking? You were ever the same, self-willed, just the same as when you were a child you would have your box of tin soldiers beside you in the carriage instead of packed safely in the baggage—just the same!" And so forth and so on, flinging my childish vagaries in my teeth just as a mother or an old nurse might have done.
"All right, Joubert," said I, dressing; "there is no use in arguing with you. I am going to offer the Pavilion as a home to Mademoiselle Feliciani. That is settled. No evil can come to me for helping the unfortunate."