Malaga looked at the stranger suspiciously.
“What countryman is monsieur?”
“I am a Pole.”
“Oh! then I accept,” she said.
Paz departed, promising to return.
“Well, that’s a stiff one!” said Marguerite Turquet, looking at Madame Chapuzot; “I’m half afraid he is wheedling me, to carry out some fancy of his own—Pooh! I’ll risk it.”
A month after this eccentric interview the circus-rider was living in a comfortable apartment furnished by Comte Adam’s own upholsterer, Paz having judged it desirable to have his folly talked about at the hotel Laginski. Malaga, to whom this adventure was like a leaf out of the Arabian Nights, was served by Monsieur and Madame Chapuzot in the double capacity of friends and servants. The Chapuzots and Marguerite were constantly expecting some result of all this; but at the end of three months none of them were able to make out the meaning of the Polish count’s caprice. Paz arrived duly and passed about an hour there once a week, during which time he sat in the salon, and never went into Malaga’s boudoir nor into her bedroom, in spite of the clever manoeuvring of the Chapuzots and Malaga to get him there. The count would ask questions as to the small events of Marguerite’s life, and each time that he came he left two gold pieces of forty francs each on the mantel-piece.
“He looks as if he didn’t care to be here,” said Madame Chapuzot.
“Yes,” said Malaga, “the man’s as cold as an icicle.”
“But he’s a good fellow all the same,” cried Chapuzot, who was happy in a new suit of clothes made of blue cloth, in which he looked like the servant of some minister.