Hark! There was the ring, and there the tread, astonishing the staircase by the fleetness with which it left the steps behind. Rosine introduced Dr. John, and, with a freedom of manner not altogether peculiar to herself, but characteristic of the domestics of Villette generally, she stayed to hear what he had to say. Madame’s presence would have awed her back to her own realm of the vestibule and the cabinet—for mine, or that of any other teacher or pupil, she cared not a jot. Smart, trim and pert, she stood, a hand in each pocket of her gay grisette apron, eyeing Dr. John with no more fear or shyness than if he had been a picture instead of a living gentleman.
“Le marmot n’a rien, nest-ce pas?” said she, indicating Georgette with a jerk of her chin.
“Pas beaucoup,” was the answer, as the doctor hastily scribbled with his pencil some harmless prescription.
“Eh bien!” pursued Rosine, approaching him quite near, while he put up his pencil. “And the box—did you get it? Monsieur went off like a coup-de-vent the other night; I had not time to ask him.”
“I found it: yes.”
“And who threw it, then?” continued Rosine, speaking quite freely the very words I should so much have wished to say, but had no address or courage to bring it out: how short some people make the road to a point which, for others, seems unattainable!
“That may be my secret,” rejoined Dr. John briefly, but with no sort of hauteur: he seemed quite to understand the Rosine or grisette character.
“Mais enfin,” continued she, nothing abashed, “monsieur knew it was thrown, since he came to seek it—how did he know?”
“I was attending a little patient in the college near,” said he, “and saw it dropped out of his chamber window, and so came to pick it up.”
How simple the whole explanation! The note had alluded to a physician as then examining “Gustave.”
“Ah ça!” pursued Rosine; “il n’y a donc rien là-dessous: pas de mystère, pas d’amourette, par exemple?”
“Pas plus que sur ma main,” responded the doctor, showing his palm.
“Quel dommage!” responded the grisette: “et moi—à qui tout cela commençait à donner des idées.”
“Vraiment! vous en êtes pour vos frais,” was the doctor’s cool rejoinder.
She pouted. The doctor could not help laughing at the sort of moue she made: when he laughed, he had something peculiarly good-natured and genial in his look. I saw his hand incline to his pocket.
“How many times have you opened the door for me within this last month?” he asked.
“Monsieur ought to have kept count of that,” said Rosine, quite readily.
“As if I had not something better to do!” rejoined he; but I saw him give her a piece of gold, which she took unscrupulously, and then danced off to answer the doorbell, ringing just now every five minutes, as the various servants came to fetch the half-boarders.
The reader must not think too hardly of Rosine; on the whole, she was not a bad sort of person, and had no idea there could be any disgrace in grasping at whatever she could get, or any effrontery in chattering like a pie to the best gentleman in Christendom.
I had learnt something from the above scene besides what concerned the ivory box: viz., that not on the robe de jaconas, pink or grey, nor yet on the frilled and pocketed apron, lay the blame of breaking Dr. John’s heart: these items of array were obviously guiltless as Georgette’s little blue tunic. So much the better. But who then was the culprit? What was the ground—what the origin—what the perfect explanation of the whole business? Some points had been cleared, but how many yet remained obscure as night!
“However,” I said to myself, “it is no affair of yours;” and turning from the face on which I had been unconsciously dwelling with a questioning gaze, I looked through the window which commanded the garden below. Dr. John, meantime, standing by the bedside, was slowly drawing on his gloves and watching his little patient, as her eyes closed and her rosy lips parted in coming sleep. I waited till he should depart as usual, with a quick bow and scarce articulate “good night.” Just as he took his hat, my eyes, fixed on the tall houses bounding the garden, saw the one lattice, already commemorated, cautiously open; forth from the aperture projected a hand and a white handkerchief; both waved. I know not whether the signal was answered from some viewless quarter of our own dwelling; but immediately after there fluttered from, the lattice a falling object, white and light—billet the second, of course.
“There!” I ejaculated involuntarily.
“Where?” asked Dr. John with energy, making direct for the window. “What is it?”
“They have gone and done it again,” was my reply. “A handkerchief waved and something fell:” and I pointed to the lattice, now closed and looking hypocritically blank.
“Go, at once; pick it up and bring it here,” was his prompt direction; adding, “Nobody will take notice of you: I should be seen.”
Straight I went. After some little search, I found a folded paper, lodged on the lower branch of a shrub; I seized and brought it direct to Dr. John. This time, I believe not even Rosine saw me.
He instantly tore the billet into small pieces, without reading it. “It is not in the least her fault, you must remember,” he said, looking at me.
“Whose fault?” I asked. “Who is it?”
“You don’t
