Of late years she
has become a sort of Puritan abbess, seeking the Protestant society
which abounds in Belgium, and lamenting her husband, whom they say she
used to drug with opium."
"Then is she not Kranich's aunt?"
"Oh yes, an aunt by marriage; but he is not her nephew: I will die
before I call him so."
"Listen," said I, "Father Joliet. You are as full of information as an
oracle, but you are not coherent. This month past I have been hunting
down a chimaera, a hydra with a dozen heads: each head shows me by
turn the portrait of Fortnoye, or Francine, or yourself, or Kranich,
or Mrs. Ashburleigh. Ever since Noisy I have been meandering through
the folds of a mystery. My head is turning with it. If you want to
save me from distraction, sit down in this chair and answer me a long
catechism, without saying a word but in reply to my questions."
[Illustration: FRAU KRANICH.]
"I am sure I talk as plain as a professor. Look! You frightened me at
first with your doubts and your impossibilities. You have only to make
Kranich's aunt agree with Francine's guardian, and at the same time
forgive Francine's husband for having assumed the undertaker's bill
for Madame Ashburleigh's baby."
"Yes, yes, my dear Joliet, you are clearer than Euclid." And I
administered a category of questions. Joliet, with his fatherly joy
bursting out of him in the longest of parentheses, kept quiet in his
refulgent shoes and answered as well as he could.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25