There was no answer. St. George was filling a pipe, and whistling the while a melancholy old tune.
"I'll tell you what, St. George"——
Here he paused, and thrummed on the book in time to the tune.
"You were about to impart some information?"
"Has your little nun taken the black veil?"
"It is no nun of my shriving."
"Are you King Ahasuerus himself, to have lived so long in the house with Miss Changarnier, may I ask, and to have thrown no handkerchief?"
"There is some confusion in your rhetoric. But it is not I who am tyrant,—it is she who stands for that;—I am only Mordecai the Jew sitting in the king's gate. As so many Jews do to-day," muttered St. George,—"ay, and on their thrones, too. I am afraid we are neither of us very well up in our Biblical history. She is the Grand Unapproachable."
"Tant mieux. My way is all the clearer."
"Your way to what?"