d call on
them after that! She was a climber, if there ever was one, that woman.)

He was an old valet of Mr. Ferrau's father, and Mr. Ferrau was
supporting him till he died in a little cottage there. He had angina
and was likely to go off any minute, and the Lord knows what Master
Louis paid the old monkey--I'll bet it was no thirty cents! He only
talked French, but I could see he thought Mr. Ferrau was crazy--he
looked at me so queerly out of his little wrinkled eyes and nodded his
head as if to say, "What a pity all this is! But we must humour him."

Mrs. Ferrau told me afterward that her husband promised him solemnly to
take Janet back if he couldn't stand her--and he would have, too, and
don't forget it! He was a game one. But the old fellow just kept
saying:

"_Bon, m'sieu, bon, bon!_" and kept reaching for his envelope. He was
only afraid they'd change their mind, you see.

Then Mr. Ferrau lay down on a cot next the old fellow's--he was kept
very clean and neat by the woman that boarded him--and I stayed in the
room while Master Louis gave that darned old Janet away. He insisted
that I should witness it, and to tell you the truth, when I remembered
what black Margaret had said about having a witness, I _did_ feel
rather queer, for a moment. But of course they were all crazy--as
crazy as loons--so far as that one thing went. You see, it was what
Dr. Stanchon calls an _idee fixe_. They had to be humoured.

Mrs. Ferrau and I went out, then, and walked up and down for an hour
through the village with the chauffeur behind us, a little way, and I
really thought I'd be dippy myself, before long, if I had to pretend to
be serious about it much longer. It's no wonder to me the doctors in
asylums get touched themselves, after what I went through with those
two.

In just about an hour he came dashing out and pushed us into the car.
We didn't need to ask him--he looked ashamed, but oh, so different!

"Let's get back to town," was all he said, and I never mentioned it to
him again, any of it. Of course, a sensible fellow like him _would_
feel too ridiculous; knowing he had that silly idea in his head, yet
not being able to get over it without such childishness--I felt sorry
for him.

I know that they didn't go back to Lakewood, for her maid packed up
there, and a week after that the old lady wrote me from Long Island
that they'd gone for a honeymoon tour in the car through Southern
France, so I knew tha