“But, my dear sir, my dear client,” stammered Moche, who was acting to perfection despair, embarrassment and perplexity, “but, sir, not you any more than another; my little niece is still a child, and then, she is an honest girl and a good and a virtuous; I wouldn’t for anything in all the world ... Besides, just think of it—I, her uncle!”
Ascott interrupted the indignant speaker:
“Come, now, how much?”
M. Moche seemed overwhelmed by the insult; he sank into his armchair and took his head between his hands, vociferating in heartbroken tones and a voice choked with sobs:
“Why, what sin have I committed that God lets me be treated in this fashion! I am only a poor advocate, and my niece just a humble workgirl, but we are both of us—I should say, all three of us, for I mustn’t forget her sainted mother—we are all honest folk, worthy of the highest respect ... and we’re expected to ... God in heaven ... we’re expected to ...”
Moche left his sentence unfinished, broke off his peroration in mid career, for it had become entirely unnecessary. Peeping through his parted fingers, the old rascal had not missed a single one of Ascott’s movements. Now the latter, leaving the old man to finish out his litany of lamentations by himself, had suddenly quitted the room, banging the door behind him. This was just what Moche was hoping for; he calculated that the Englishman, seeing nothing could be made of the uncle, was going to try and catch up the niece before she had left the house. Treading softly, he crept to the door giving on the landing outside, the same Ascott had shut a moment or two before, and set it ajar. There he stood listening, his face beaming, and rubbing his hands.
Ascott, who had caught sight of Nini Guinon on the floor below as he was going downstairs, was leaning over the bannister and calling in a voice shaking with excitement:
“Mademoiselle! pst! Mademoiselle, I say! Mademoiselle Eugénie! Listen!”
Then it was Nini’s clear, flute-like voice, pitched in a tone of perfect innocence, that answered:
“Who’s calling me? Is it you, dear uncle?”