“I found Monsieur Martin outside,” she said, “and I commandeered him as an escort round the neighbourhood. He couldn’t refuse. I hope I haven’t done wrong.”
“Martin knows more about Brantôme,” replied Bigourdin courteously, “than most of the Brantômois themselves.”
Céleste appeared from the gloom of the stairs. Lucilla, after an idle word or two, retired. Bigourdin closed and bolted the front door. To do that he would trust nobody, not even Martin. Having completed the operation, he advanced slowly towards his employé.
“Did you go to the café to-night?”
“No,” replied Martin. “I was walking with mademoiselle, who, as she may have told you, is a friend of Mademoiselle Corinna.”
“Yes, yes, she told me that,” said Bigourdin. “There is no need of explanations, mon ami. But I am glad you did not go to the café. I ought to have warned you. We must be very discreet towards the Viriots. There is no longer any marriage. Félise doesn’t want it. Her father has formally forbidden it. I have no desire to make anybody unhappy. But there it is. Foutu, le mariage. And I haven’t said anything as yet to the Viriots. And, again, I can’t say anything to Monsieur Viriot, until he says something to me. Voilà la situation. Cest d’une délicatesse extraordinaire.”
He passed his hand over his head and tried to grip the half-inch stubble.
“I tell you this, mon cher Martin, because you know the intimate affairs of the family. So”—he shook an impressive finger—“act towards the Viriots, father and son, as if you knew nothing, nothing at all. Laissez-moi faire.”
Martin pledged the discretion of the statues in the old Alhambra tale. What did the extraordinary delicacy of the situation between Bigourdin and the Viriots matter to him? When he reached his room, he laughed aloud, oblivious of Bigourdin, the Viriots and poor little Félise who (though he knew it not) lay achingly awake.
At last a woman, a splendid wonder of a woman, a woman with the resplendent dignity of the King’s daughter of the fairy tales, with the bewilderment of beauty of face and of form and of voice like the cooing of a dove, with the delicate warm sympathy of sheer woman, had come into his life.