MADAME ADOLPHE
When the old man—the professor counted then sixty-two summers—had walked three steps, he turned his head at this question, hurled in an acute tone by a voice that he recognized:
"Have you a handkerchief?"
A woman stood on the step of the garden door and was watching her master with solicitude.
She seemed to be fifty years of age, and her dress indicated that she was one of those servants who are invested with full authority in household affairs.
She was darning stockings.
The man of science came back and said naively:
"Yes, Madame Adolphe, I have my handkerchief."
"Have you your spectacles?" she asked.