“I am sure of it. He has come more frequently since Juliette came to live at the château. It is Juliette who makes him come, perhaps. Who knows?”
The Abbé stopped midway across the floor and set down the chair he carried with great caution.
“Madame is incorrigible,” he said, spreading out his hands. “Madame would perceive a romance in a cradle.”
“Well, one must begin somewhere, Materialist. Once it was for me that the guests crowded to my poor Thursdays. But now it is because Albert is near. Ah! I know it. I say it without jealousy. Have you noticed, my dear Abbé, that he has cut his whiskers a little shorter—a shade nearer to the ear? It is effective, eh?”
“It gives an air of hardihood,” assented the Abbé. “It lends to that intellectual face something martial. I would almost say that to the timorous it might appear terrible and overbearing.”
Thus they talked until the guests began to arrive, and for Madame de Chantonnay the time no doubt seemed short enough. For no one appreciated Albert with such a delicacy of touch as the Abbé Touvent.
The Marquis de Gemosac and Juliette were the last to arrive. The Marquis looked worn and considerably aged. He excused himself with a hundred gestures of despair for being late.
“I have so much to do,” he whispered. “So much to think of. We are leaving no stone unturned, and at last we have a clue.”
The other guests gathered round.
“But speak, my dear friend, speak,” cried Madame de Chantonnay. “You keep us in suspense. Look around you. We are among friends, as you see. It is only ourselves.”