“I thought that he might leave Paris, and go back to Launcelot Darrell,” she said, in a broken voice, “but I never thought of anything like this.”
“Sh-sh-sh-sh!” cried Monsieur Bourdon from the bed. “Ftz! Cats, cats! Sh-sh-sh-sh! Chase those cats, somebody! There’s the girl Faust saw upon the Bracken with the little rat running out of her mouth! There, sitting at the table! Go then, Voleuse, Gueuse, Infâme!” screamed the Frenchman, glaring at Eleanor.
The girl took no notice of him. Her sobs grew every moment louder and more hysterical. The major looked at her helplessly.
“Don’t,” he said, “my good creature, don’t now. This is really dreadful, ’pon my soul, now. Come, come, now; cheer up, my dear, cheer up. You won’t do anything by giving way, you know. I always tell Margaret that, when she thinks she can catch the train by sitting on the ground and crying because her portmanteaus won’t shut. Nobody ever did, you know, and if you don’t put your shoulder to the wheel——”
The major might have rambled on in this wise for some time; but the sobbing grew louder; and he felt that it was imperatively necessary that something energetic should be done in this crisis. A bright thought flashed upon him as he looked hopelessly round the room, and in another moment he had seized a small white crockery-ware jug from the Frenchman’s toilet table, and launched its contents at Eleanor’s head.
This was a second master-stroke. The girl looked up with her head dripping, but with her courage revived by the shock her senses had received.
She took off her wet bonnet, and pushed the drenched hair from her forehead.
“Oh, major,” she said, “I know I have been very silly. But I was so taken by surprise. It seems so cruel that this should happen. I shall never get the will now.”
“Stuff and nonsense, my dear,” exclaimed Major Lennard. “What’s to prevent your getting it?”
“What do you mean?