"No news of Prince Sernine?" asked Lenormand.
"What about Pierre Leduc?"
"He spends the whole day lying flat on his back in his room on the ground-floor, or else in the garden. He never comes up to see us."
"Is he better?"
"Much better. The rest has made a great change in his appearance."
"Is he wholly devoted to Lupin?"
"To Prince Sernine, rather, for he does not suspect that the two are one and the same man. At least, I suppose so. One never knows, with him. He does not speak at all. Oh, he's a queer fish! There's only one person who has the gift of cheering him up, of making him talk and even laugh. That's a young girl from Garches, to whom Prince Sernine introduced him. Geneviève Ernemont her name is. She has been here three times already . . . she was here to-day." He added, jestingly, "I believe there's a little flirting going on. . . . It's like his highness Prince Sernine and Mrs. Kesselbach. . . . It seems he's making eyes at her! . . . That devil of a Lupin!"
M. Lenormand did not reply. But it was obvious that all these details, to which he seemed to attach no importance, were noted in the recesses of his memory, to be used whenever he might need to draw the logical inferences from them. He lit a cigar, chewed it without smoking it, lit it again and dropped it.
He asked two or three more questions and then, dressed as he was, threw himself on his bed: