in respect of which he was conscientious, holding it at once a duty
and a perquisite of his disability) he was at heart in no haste
whatever to be discharged as whole and hale. The plain truth is, the
man malingered shamelessly and even took a certain pride in the low
cunning which enabled him to pose on as the impatient patient when he
was so very well content to take his ease, be waited on and catered to,
and listen for the footsteps of Eve de Montalais and the accents of her
delightful voice.

These last he heard not often enough by half. Still, he seldom lacked
company in the long hours when Eve was busy with the petty duties of
her days, and left him lorn. Madame de Sevenie had taken a flattering
fancy to him, and frequently came to gossip beside his bed or chair. He
found her tremendously entertaining, endowed as she was with an
excellent and well-stored memory, a gift of caustic characterization
and a pretty taste in the scandal of her bygone day and generation, as
well as with a mind still active and better informed on the affairs of
to-day than that of many a Parisienne of the haute monde and half her
age.

During the first bedridden week, Georges d'Aubrac visited Duchemin at
least once each day to compare wounds and opinions concerning the
inefficiency of the local gendarmerie. For that body accomplished
nothing toward laying by the heels the authors of the attacks on
d'Aubrac and Duchemin, but (for all Duchemin can say to the contrary)
is still following "clues" with the fruitless diligence of so many
American police detectives on the trail of a bank messenger accused of
stealing bonds.

A decent, likable chap, this d'Aubrac, as reticent as any Englishman
concerning his part in the Great War. Duchemin had to talk round the
subject for days before d'Aubrac confessed that his record in the
French air service had won him the title of Ace; and this only when
Duchemin found out that d'Aubrac was at present, in his civilian
capacity, managing director of an establishment manufacturing
airplanes.

At the end of that week he left to go back to his business; and Louise
de Montalais replaced him at Duchemin's side, where she would sit by
the hour reading aloud to him in a voice as colourless as her unformed
personality. Nevertheless Duchemin was grateful, and with the young
girl as guide for the _nth_ time sailed with d'Artagnan to Newcastle
and rode with him toward Belle Isle, with him frustrated the
machination