The doctor had gone up to the bed, turned down the bedclothes, placed his stethoscope over the heart, and listened.
“He will die in three or four hours,” he said, as he turned again from the bed. “The heart is exhausted; it has lost almost all power of propulsion. Let me hear when all is over. Madame, your servant.”
He hurried out of the room, clapping his hat on his head and noisily clattering down the stairs.
“You may go,” said Mouse to the woman of the house. “I will stay a few hours here. Meantime try and get a Sœur de Charité.”
“Who will pay for all this expense, madame?” said the woman. “Who will pay for the burial and all the rest?”
“You must send to the German consul—he will tell you,” said Mouse. “I ought to have thought of it before. I cannot stay here much longer, but I will stay till someone in authority comes. Go; send at once to the consulate.”
“You talk very glibly of sending here and there and everywhere,” said the woman rather rudely.
Mouse put ten francs into the woman’s hand, wishing to make a friend of her. “And send for the consul at once that I may speak to him,” she added, for she always remembered appearances.
It was growing dark. By her watch it was a quarter to six. All light had faded off the olive-clad slope in front of the window. She had had no afternoon tea. She began to want her dinner, and, after all, she might be boring herself to no purpose, on a mere fool’s errand.
The woman came in with a petroleum lamp smelling atrociously.