oquist; "I am
with you."

A minute later, Marillac appeared upon the threshold, in his slippers
and with a silk handkerchief tied about his head, holding his
candlestick in one hand and a pipe in the other; he stood there
motionless.

"You are fine," said he, "you are magnificent, fatal and accursed--You
remind me of Kean in Othello--

"Have you pray'd to-night, Desdemona?"

Gerfaut gazed at him with frowning brows, but made no reply.

"I will wager that it is the last scene in our third act," replied the
artist, placing his candlestick upon the mantel; "it seems that it is
to be very tragic. Now listen! I also feel the poetical afflatus coming
over me, and, if you like, we will set about devouring paper like two
boa-constrictors. Speaking of serpents, have you a rattle? Ah, yes!
Here is the bell-rope. I was about to say that we would have a bowl of
coffee. Or rather, I will go into the kitchen myself; I am very good
friends with Marianne, the cook; besides, the motto of the house of
Bergenheim is liberte, libertas. Coffee is my muse; in this respect, I
resemble Voltaire--"

"Marillac!" exclaimed Gerfaut, as the artist was about to leave the
room. The artist turned, and meekly retraced his steps.

"You will be so good as to do me the favor of returning to your room,"
said Gerfaut. "You may work or you may sleep, just as you like; between
us, you would do well to sleep. I wish to be alone."

"You say that as if you meditated an attempt upon your illustrious
person. Are you thinking of suicide? Let us see whether you have some
concealed weapon, some poisoned ring. Curse upon it! the poison of the
Borgias! Is the white substance in this china bowl, vulgarly called
sugar, by some terrible chance infamous arsenic disguised under the
appearance of an honest colonial commodity?"

"Be kind enough to spare your jokes," said Octave, as his friend poked
about in all the corners of the room with an affectation of anxiety,
"and, as I can not get rid of you, listen to my opinion: if you think
that I brought you here for you to conduct yourself as you have for the
last two days, you are mistaken."

"What have I done?"

"You left me the whole morning with that tiresome Bergenheim on my
hands, and I verily believe he made me count every stick in his park and
every frog in his pond. Tonight, when that old witch of Endor proposed
her infernal game of whist, to which it seems I am to be condemned
daily, you-excused y