Mudd shook his head.
"I've known him for forty year," said he, "and it has hit me cruel hard, his doing things he's never done before—not much; but there you are—he's different."
"I have known an old gentleman," said Madame—"Monsieur de Mirabole—he, too, changed to be quite gay and young, as though spring had come to him. He wrote me verses," laughed Madame. "Me, an old woman! I humoured him, did I not, Cerise? But I never read his verses; I could not humour him to that point."
"What happened to him?" asked Mudd gloomily.
"Oh dear, he fell in love with Cerise," said Madame. "He was very rich; he wanted to marry Cerise, did he not, Cerise?"
"Oui, maman," replied Cerise, finishing the flowers.
All this hit Mudd pleasantly. Sincere as sunshine, patently, obviously, truthful, this pair of females were beyond suspicion on the charge of setting nets for Simon. Also, and for the first time in his life, he came to know the comfort of a female mind when in trouble. His troubles up to this had been mostly about uncleaned brasses, corked wine, letters forgotten to be posted. In this whirlpool of amazement, like Poe's man in the descent of the maelstrom, who, clinging to a barrel, found that he was being sucked down slower, Mudd, clinging now to the female saving-something—sense, clarity of outlook, goodness, call it what you will—found comfort.
He had opened his mind, the nightmare had lifted somewhat. Opening his mind to Bobby had not relieved him in the least; on the contrary, talking with Bobby, the situation had seemed more insane than ever. The two rigid masculine minds had followed one another, incapable of mutual help; the buoyant female