Part 39 (1/2)
The Abbe was more than ever convinced of his own attractions as Jeanne left the Marquis de Castellux with a little grave courtesy and joined him. He had found her subst.i.tute a poor companion and walked much less in the garden than usual.
”You find the Marquis very interesting?” he asked.
”Yes, but very provincial. One soon becomes weary of such company, yet one must be kind, Monsieur l'Abbe,” and Jeanne laughed lightly. She appeared much more interested in him than she had been in the Marquis.
Richard Barrington talked to others for a little while, and then went into the office. He found a servant and asked if he could see Legrand.
The doctor was out. Barrington was rather annoyed. He wanted to see the room he was to have after Sat.u.r.day. At present he was stalled like a pig, he declared.
”Monsieur will have nothing to complain of after Sat.u.r.day,” the servant answered.
”Which guest is leaving?”
”Pardon, monsieur, it is not etiquette to speak of it; but if monsieur likes I can show him the room.”
”Show it to me, then.”
”I am a poor man, monsieur, and cannot afford to work for nothing.”
”How much?” Barrington asked.
The servant named a price, and if he received many such fees he would not long be able to call himself a poor man. Barrington paid him, and was taken upstairs and shown Jeanne's room. He did not cross the threshold, hardly glanced in at the door, in fact, but grumbled at its size and its position. He would have liked this room or that. Why not one at the end of this pa.s.sage? He liked to be in a light pa.s.sage.
”It is not a pleasant outlook this side, monsieur, stable roofs, a bare wall and no garden.”
”Truly, a prospect to drive a man to despair,” growled Barrington, looking from the pa.s.sage window on to the roofs of outbuildings a few feet below, and across at the house which these buildings joined, and which was at the end of a row of houses facing the street. There was only one window in that opposite wall, twelve or fourteen feet above these outbuildings, a dirty window, fast shut.
”I think very little of Monsieur Legrand's asylum,” said Barrington, turning away in disgust. ”I shall tell him so.”
”Certainly, monsieur, if it will ease your mind.”
”He is out, you say?”
”Since early this morning.”
”He ought to stop here and look after his guests,” and then Barrington became apprehensive. ”He would be angry if I told him so. Would he?”
”He might.”
”Or if you told him I had said so?”
”Probably.”
”You must not tell him. See, here is more money, and there will be more still so long as you do not tell him.”
The servant promised to be silent, and told the other servants that the Marquis could be plundered at will. Barrington considered the money well spent. He had examined the house without any risk of being caught taking observations, and he had ascertained that Legrand could not have spied upon him had he walked in the garden.
That night the Abbe decided that, although the Marquis had not made any great impression on Mademoiselle St. Clair, he was a decided acquisition to the establishment, witty within his provincial limits, the breed in him unmistakable. At Versailles he would speedily have learned how to become a courtier.