s confided about the third day, was not a man at all
but a machine. Work, work, work--day and night, no thought for
comfort, no distractions, no voices. _Voyons!_ It was against nature
when a man lived like that. And what did he get for it?

"_Ecoutez, mademoiselle_," the little man of the Midi said to her
earnestly, laying his finger on her arm, "if the doctor worked only one
half so hard--only one half, now I am telling you--he could be a rich
man to-day, with a palace, three, four cars, a chauffeur, a _valet de
chambre_. It is only because he spends his time up there in that room
that he makes so little money."

Esther knew that he was right, although she understood better than he
the unworldly aims of the man.

Jacques had more to tell her. Such was the doctor's complete
stupidity, not to be comprehended by rational beings, that whenever he
had a little money put aside he would shut up shop and take a holiday,
so as to be able to devote all his days to research.

"Mademoiselle knows that is not a way to do," complained Jacques in an
aggrieved voice. "People think he not practise any more, they find
another doctor. Many, many times he lose patients that way. _Quelle
betise, voyons!_"

"He must have been practising pretty steadily now for some time,"
remarked Esther, "to have as good a practice as he seems to have."

"Ah, yes, it is long now, for him, and I think he gets now what you
English call fed-up. I believe he would like to throw it all up
to-morrow, but he cannot. It is the season, there are many English
here. Later, in the summer, perhaps, he take a rest."

These confidences took place chiefly at _dejeuner_, which Esther ate
alone in the _salle a manger_, a room more cheerful than the salon,
being on the sunny side of the house. The doctor, consecrating the
lunch hour to work, had his meal brought to the laboratory on a tray.
The food was excellent, in the best French bourgeois style, cooked and
served by Jacques, who did all the work of the place with the help of a
_femme de menage_ in the mornings. He was frankly delighted when
Esther did justice to his dishes.

"Mademoiselle will have a little more of the _blanquette de veau_," he
would say pleadingly. "It is very good, yes, the _champignons_ I
choose myself. The doctor up there will eat whatever I give him. If
it is bread and cheese it make no difference, but I, I say to him, '_Il
faut que cette demoiselle soit nourie!_'"

He w