"The Mother Superior, if you please?"
The door shut automatically upon Fandor. He was in the little inner court of the small convent, face to face with a Sister, who gazed in alarm at the unexpected guest. The journalist persisted:
"Can I see the Mother Superior?"
"Well, sir, yes—no, I think not."
The worthy nun evidently did not know what to say. Finally making up her mind she pointed to a passage, and, drawing aside to let the journalist pass, said:
"Be good enough to go in there and wait a few moments."
Fandor was ushered into a large, plain and austere room—doubtless the parlour of the community. At the windows hung long, white curtains, while before the half-dozen armchairs lay tiny rugs of matting; the floor, very waxed, was slippery to the tread. The journalist regarded curiously the walls upon which were hung here and there religious figures or chromos of an edifying kind. Above the chimney hung a great crucifix of ebony. But for the noise from without, the passing of the trains and motors, and were it not also for the fine savour of cooking and roast onions, one might have thought oneself a hundred leagues from the world in the peaceful calm of this little convent.
Fandor, on leaving Bonardin, had decided to fulfill without delay a pious mission given him by Juve's victim.
Taken in at the time of his accident by the Sisters of the Rue Charmille, Bonardin had received from them the first aid his condition required, and as he had left them without a word of thanks, he had begged Fandor to return and hand them on his behalf a fifty-franc bill for their poor.
After some minutes the door opened and a nun appeared. She greeted Fandor with a slight movement of the head; while the journalist bowed deferentially before her.