anybody else.
You always ask people to dinner without telling me beforehand, and
you think that everything is settled as soon as you have called for
Jacquotte! You are not going to have the gentleman sit in the kitchen,
are you? Is not the salon to be unlocked and a fire to be lighted?
Nicolle is there, and will see after everything. Now take the gentleman
into the garden for a minute; that will amuse him; if he likes to look
at pretty things, show him the arbor of hornbeam trees that the poor
dear old gentleman made. I shall have time then to lay the cloth, and to
get everything ready, the dinner and the salon too."

"Yes. But, Jacquotte," Benassis went on, "the gentleman is going to stay
with us. Do not forget to give a look round M. Gravier's room, and see
about the sheets and things, and----"

"Now you are not going to interfere about the sheets, are you?" asked
Jacquotte. "If he is to sleep here, I know what must be done for him
perfectly well. You have not so much as set foot in M. Gravier's room
these ten months past. There is nothing to see there, the place is as
clean as a new pin. Then will the gentleman make some stay here?" she
continued in a milder tone.

"Yes."

"How long will he stay?"

"Faith, I do not know: What does it matter to you?"

"What does it matter to me, sir? Oh! very well, what does it matter
to me? Did any one ever hear the like! And the provisions and all that
and----"

At any other time she would have overwhelmed her master with reproaches
for his breach of trust, but now she followed him into the kitchen
before the torrent of words had come to an end. She had guessed that
there was a prospect of a boarder, and was eager to see Genestas, to
whom she made a very deferential courtesy, while she scanned him from
head to foot. A thoughtful and dejected expression gave a harsh look
to the soldier's face. In the dialogue between master and servant the
latter had appeared to him in the light of a nonentity; and although he
regretted the fact, this revelation had lessened the high opinion that
he had formed of the man whose persistent efforts to save the district
from the horrors of cretinism had won his admiration.

"I do not like the looks of that fellow at all!" said Jacquotte to
herself.

"If you are not tired, sir," said the doctor to his supposed patient,
"we will take a turn round the garden before dinner."

"Willingly," answered the commandant.

They went through the dining