"Now I will run and call the porter," said Simon, hurriedly; "he shall send some one to the Hotel Dieu, and bring a physician for my poor, dear, sick Jeanne Marie."
He hastened out, and turned back, after a few minutes, with the report that the porter himself had gone to bring a doctor, and that help would come at once.
"Nonsense!" cried Jeanne Marie; "no doctor can help me, and there is nothing at all that I want. Only give me something to drink, Simon, for my throat burns like fire, and then call little Capet in, for in his dark room his eyes glisten like stars, and I cannot bear them."
Simon shook his head sadly; and, while holding a glass of cold water to her lips, he said to himself: "Jeanne Marie is really sick! She has a fever! But we must do what she orders, else it will come to delirium, and she might become insane."
And with a loud voice he called, "Capet, Capet! come here, come here! you viper, you wolf's cub, come here!"
The boy obeyed the command, slowly crept into the room, and sat down in the rush-chair in the corner. "He shall not look at me," shrieked Jeanne Marie; "he shall not look into my heart with his dreadful blue eyes, it hurts me—oh! so much, so much!"
"Turn around, you viper!" said Simon. "Look round this way again, or
I'll tear your eyes out of your head! I—"
The door leading to the corridor now opened, and an old man, leaning on a cane, entered, wearing on his head a powdered peruke, his bent form covered with a black satin coat, beneath which a satin vest was seen; on his feet, silk stockings and buckled shoes; in his lace- encircled hand, a cane with a gold head.
"Well," cried Simon, with a laugh, "what sort of an old scarecrow is that? And what does it want here?"
"The scarecrow wants nothing of you," said the old man, in a kindly way, "but you want something of it, citizen. You have sent for me."