Then for some seconds the only sound to be heard in the attic was the laboured breathing of the three young men's despair.
At last Tricotrin, drawing himself upright in his tattered nightshirt, said, with a gesture of dignity, "Well, the case may justify me—in the present situation it appears to me that I have the right to use my influence with Blondette!"
A signal from Mars could not have caused a more profound sensation. Pitou and Lajeunie regarded him with open mouths. "Your influence?" echoed Pitou: "your influence? I was not aware that you had ever met her."
"No," rejoined the poet darkly; "I have not met her. But there are circumstances in my life which entitle me to demand a service of this triumphant woman. Do not question me, my friends—what I shall say to her must remain a secret even from you. I declare, however, that nobody has a stronger claim on her than Gustave Tricotrin, the poor penny-a- liner whom she does not know!"
The sudden intervention—to say nothing of its literary flavour—so excited the collaborators that they nearly wrung his hands off: and Lajeunie, who recognised a promising beginning for another serial, was athirst for further hints.
"She has perhaps committed a murder, that fair fiend?" he inquired rapturously.
"Perhaps," replied Tricotrin.
"In that case she dare refuse you nothing."
"Why not, since I have never heard of it?"
"I was only jesting," said the novelist. "In sober earnest, I conjecture that you are married to her, like Athos to Miladi. As you stand there, with that grave air, you strongly resemble Athos."