Picot considered for a moment or two, then he said: "I remind myself of a place that will, I think, suit madame. The landlord is a compatriot of my own; he is honest man; he will not cheat his lodgers. If madame would like to see the apartments"----
"By all means, if you recommend them, monsieur."
"Then I will give madame the address." He tore a leaf out of his pocket-book, pencilled down a couple of lines, and handed the paper to Mrs. Brooke with an elaborate bow. At Clara's request he then hailed a passing cab; then both the ladies, having kissed Henri and shaken hands with Picot, were driven away.
Henri, as he stood gazing after the cab, said to his father: "Are the angels as beautiful as that lady, papa?"
"That is more than I can say, mon p'tit," replied the mountebank with a laugh. "When I have seen an angel, I shall be able to tell thee."
[CHAPTER X.]
In less than a week after her interview with Picot, Mrs. Brooke, her husband, and Miss Primby were settled in their new home. The rooms recommended by the Frenchman had proved more to Clara's liking than any she had seen elsewhere, and she at once engaged them. The furniture and fittings were to a great extent after the cheap and tawdry style so much affected by the inferior class of French lodging-house keepers; but as the whole place was pervaded by an air of cleanliness, such little désagréments as existed in other respects Clara was prepared to overlook.
No. 5 Pymm's Buildings was one of a row of half-a-dozen houses similar to itself in size and outward aspect, situated in a quiet court abutting on a main thoroughfare in the busy and populous district of Soho. All the houses in Pymm's Buildings accommodated a more or less numerous tribe of lodgers, the lower floors being generally arranged in suites of rooms for the convenience of families, while the top floors were usually divided into separate sleeping apartments. And it was in this place and amid such sordid surroundings that the whilom owner of Beechley Towers hoped to find for a little time a secure shelter from the hue and cry of the ten thousand hounds of policedom, each and all of whom were doing their utmost to run him to earth. His idea had been to bury himself in the heart of some densely populated district where one man is but as a grain of sand among ten thousand others, and in so far it may be surmised that he had been successful.
When Mrs. Brooke quitted Beechley Towers secretly and by night to join her husband in London, Margery, faithful Margery, was the only one who was made aware of her departure. The girl pleaded so hard to be allowed to accompany her, that at last Clara was fain to make her a promise that she would send for her as soon as she was settled in her new home. Thus it fell out that Margery was now here, and her mistress found the value of her services in a score different ways. For instance, Margery did all the marketing, and did it for little more than half what it had cost before her arrival. Poor simple-minded Clara, who believed everybody to be as honest as herself, had been imposed upon at every turn; but the shopman or peripatetic vendor who succeeded in "besting" Margery, as she termed it, must have been very wide-awake indeed. The girl would haggle for half an hour over a penny, and her powers of vituperation always rose to the level of the occasion.
What was Mrs. Brooke's surprise about the third day after her arrival at Pymm's Buildings, as she was on her way downstairs, to encounter M. Picot on his way up! Then it came out that the mountebank rented a room at the top of the house which he looked upon as a permanent home, and occupied as such when his avocations did not take him elsewhere. Had Mrs. Brooke been aware of this fact at the time, she might perhaps have hesitated before deciding to take the rooms. And yet, somehow, she had an instinctive feeling of trust in the mountebank--the same sort of trust, although in a lesser degree, that she had in Margery; and after the first tremor of alarm which shot through her when she encountered him on the staircase, she never felt a moment's doubt that her secret, or as much of it as he might know or suspect, was safe in his keeping. It became, of course, necessary to explain to him that it was she and her husband, and not any one else, whose fortunes had changed so woefully. But Picot was one of the most incurious of mortals outside the range of his own affairs. He only remembered Clara as "la belle madame" who had kissed his boy and spoken kindly to him and had laden him with gifts, and about whom Henri often spoke when his father and he were alone. He had never thought of asking any one what her name was; and even now, when he understood from Clara how terribly the circumstances of herself and her husband were changed, he expressed neither curiosity nor surprise in the matter. He was vraiment désolé--he was heart-broken to think that such should be the case; but that was all. He did indeed, a little later, ask the landlord the name of his new lodgers; and when he was told that they were known as Mr. and Mrs. Stewart, he repeated the name to himself two or three times over, so as to impress it on his memory, and then went contentedly on his way.