oking out on a
narrow alley. Astier-Rehu, who was to be called first, did not go in,
but walked up and down in the gloomy passage between the witness-room
and the court. Freydet wished to stay with him, but he said in a
colourless voice, 'No, no, let me alone, I want to be alone.' So
the candidate joined the other witnesses who were standing in little
knots--Baron Huchenard, Bos the palaeographer, Delpech the chemist, of
the Academie des Sciences, some experts in handwriting, and two or three
pretty girls, the originals of some of the photographs that adorned the
walls of Fage's room, delighted at the notoriety that the proceedings
would bring them, laughing loudly and displaying startling little spring
hats strangely different from the linen cap and woollen mittens of the
caretaker at the Cour des Comptes. Vedrine also had been summoned, and
Freydet came and sat by him on the wide ledge of the open window. The
two friends, whirled apart in the opposing currents that divide men's
lives in Paris, had not met since the summer before until the recent
funeral of poor Germaine de Freydet Vedrine pressed his friend's hand
and asked how he was, how he felt after so terrible a blow. Freydet
shrugged his shoulders, 'It's hard, very hard, but after all I'm used
to it.' Then, as Vedrine stared in wonder at his selfish stoicism, he
added, 'Just think, that's twice in one year that I have been fooled.'
The blow, the only blow, that he remembered, was his failure to get
Ripault-Babin's seat, which he had lately missed, as he had missed
Loisillon's before. Presently he understood, sighed deeply, and said,
'Ah, yes, poor Germaine!' She had taken so much trouble all the winter
about his unlucky candidature. Two dinners a week! Up to twelve or one
o'clock she would be wheeling her chair all over the drawing-room. She
had sacrificed her remaining strength to it, and was even more excited
and keen than her brother. And at the last, the very last, when she was
past speaking, her poor twisted fingers went on counting upon the hem of
the sheet 'Yes, Vedrine, she died, ticking and calculating my chances
of Ripault-Babin's seat. Oh, if only for her sake, I will get into their
Academie, in defiance of them all, and in honour of her dear memory!'
He stopped short, then in an altered and lower voice went on: 'Really I
don't know why I talk like that. The truth is that, since they put the
idea into my head, I can think of nothing else. My sister is d