"Then," he continued, "where are my choice books, my éditions de luxe? There were some splendid volumes here, rare, you understand, worth money. She must have sold them also. I recollect when she begged me to let her take them out of my room. And a violin—of the most superb—that is gone! You know nothing of all these?"
"I know nothing—truly—m'sieu."
"And my cats? Who has dared to interfere with my cats, my dear friends? Le Cid—Chateaubriand—Phédre—Montcalm—eh? What has been done with them? And the doors, the little doors I had made for them—nailed up, I see! Ah—ah, madame—this is your work! You have killed them! Say then, am I not right? Miserable wretch of a woman!"
He was staggering now about the room between weakness and temper and she assisted him to a chair.
"You have killed them!" he gasped repeatedly.
"No, m'sieu, not one. Indeed, m'sieu, I speak the truth. The cats of m'sieu were fourteen; how could I kill so many? No, but I fed them and put them away in the barns—yes—and nailed up the little doors, it is true, for I could not do my work with the cats of m'sieu always between the feet. I spoke of them once to you, because there were two who wished to enter your room, lie on the bed——"
"Yes, yes! Le Cid and Montcalm. Good cats, good friends!"
"Lie on the bed, but I could not allow them. Thus, for three days they sat outside the door of m'sieu."
"And the peacock? Is it that I shall find him banished also when I walk forth from my house? Mlle. Pauline has rid herself of him?"
"Not so, m'sieu. I have cared for the bird and indeed for all the animals."