“I shall be very glad to call on the lady,” said Madame Casilis, when the matter was explained to her, “but I fear there is not much that we can do besides.”
The pasteur and his wife were kind hearted people, who never lost time in doing any little service to others that might be in their power. They called that very afternoon on the lady with the barbarous name in the Rue St. Louis. When they came home Madame Casalis was quite excited.
“Imagine, Cicely,” she exclaimed, “is it not amusing—this Madame Creetonne is no other than Eudoxie’s Madame Gentille? Eudoxie will be quite delighted. We discovered it at once by her telling me she had made no friends at Hivèritz except one little girl. ‘To whom,’ said I, ‘you gave a macaroon, was it not?’ She looked astonished; then we laughed at the coincidence, but it made us feel quite friendly. In general I feel somewhat génée with the English one meets here. They are so rich, so unlike us, but this Madame Creetonne is not so; she is most simple and amiable. She wants Eudoxie to go to see her to-morrow. I told her also about you, Cicely, that I had a cousin, an English lady, visiting me—she was so pleased to hear you were English.”
Madame Casalis stopped at last, quite out of breath.
“Do you think she would like me to go to see her?” said Cicely good-naturedly. “I will take Eudoxie there to-morrow if you like, aunt. She must be dull, poor thing. Is it she that is ill? She does not look so.”
“No, oh! no—it is not she. It is her brother. We did not see him.”
“Then he is Eudoxie’s old husband.”
“Yes,” said Madame Casalis, smiling. “Eudoxie is wrong for once. Madame Creetonne is a widow. I know not if her brother be old. He is a very clever man; a writer, I think, she said. He overworked himself and was very ill. Now he is better, but the overwork has weakened his eye sight. They came here because he had been in a warm country, and they feared England for him this winter. He is writing some book now, his sister told me. Monsieur Casalis is going to lend him some dictionnaires he is in want of, which they could not get at the librairie here.”
“Yes,” said Monsieur Casalis. “He must be a very learned man, ce Monsieur Creetonne.”
“Is his name Crichton too?” said Cicely. “I thought you said she was his married sister.”