François had lagged behind, and was saying to the Marquis,
“Are you Fernand or Victor Egmont de St. Angel?”
“I am Fernand,” said the Marquis. “What do you know about my family?”
“Oh, merely that we are cousins.”
The Marquis shouted out laughing, while François, rolling up his sleeve, gravely exhibited his arm tattooed with a crest and initials.
“This was done,” he said, “when I was a child, in case I got lost. I have got lost since in the great, mysterious maze of the world, but I have no objection, like that young lady yonder, to go to supper with you, provided you will have a good brand of champagne. Cheap champagne is worse than bad acting.”
“Come!” cried the Marquis, “I know that crest. You have indeed got lost! But you shall have champagne at twenty francs the bottle if you will tell me all about that young lady who kicked about so beautifully in her little wooden shoes.”
François then slipped his arm within that of the Marquis and the two paraded across the quiet street singing at the top of their voices some of the songs they had heard that evening from the sweet lips of Diane.
Nothing was seen of François that night, but the next morning when Madame Grandin, who added thrift and early rising to her other virtues, was going out to the market at sunrise, she came across François lying drunk on the door-step. Madame Grandin, a good soul, instead of calling her husband or Jean, who would be likely to use François roughly, tiptoed to Diane’s door and the two women very quietly managed to get François, who was a small man, up the stair, on his way to his attic. As they passed Grandin’s door, the manager appeared in a very sketchy toilette.
“What’s the matter with François?” asked Grandin.