The latter merely gazed at him a while; then he said to the strange young man, “He is a little jealous of you. But there is no harm in that; it’s of his age. You must know him, you must like him. We will tell you his history some other day; it will make you feel that he belongs to us, in fact. It is an accident that he hasn’t met you here before.”
“How could ces messieurs have met, when M. Paul never comes? He doesn’t spoil us!” Madame Poupin cried.
“Well, you see I have my little sister at home to take care of, when I ain’t at the shop,” M. Paul explained. “This afternoon it was just a chance; there was a lady we know came in to sit with her.”
“A lady — a real lady?”
“Oh, yes, every inch,” said M. Paul, laughing.
“Do you like them to thrust themselves into your apartment like that, because you have the desagrement of being poor? It seems to be the custom in this country, but it wouldn’t suit me at all,” Madame Poupin continued. “I should like to see one of ces dames — the real ones — coming in to sit with me!”
“Oh, you are not a cripple; you have got the use of your legs!”
“Yes, and of my arms!” cried the Frenchwoman.
“This lady looks after several others in our court, and she reads to my sister.”
“Oh, well, you are patient, you English.”
“We shall never do anything without that,” said M. Paul, with undisturbed good-humor.
“You are perfectly right; you can’t say that too often. It will be a tremendous job, and only the strong will prevail,” his host murmured, a little wearily, turning his eyes to Madame Poupin, who approached slowly, holding the tisane in a rather full bowl, and tasting it again and yet again as she came.
Hyacinth had been watching his fellow-visitor with deepening interest; a fact of which M. Paul apparently became aware, for he said, presently, giving a little nod in the direction of the bed, “He says we ought to know each other. I’m sure I have nothing against it. I like to know folk, when they ‘re worth it!”
Hyacinth was too pleased with this even to take it up; it seemed to him, for a moment, that he couldn’t touch it gracefully enough. But he said, with sufficient eagerness, “Will you tell me all about your plot?”
“Oh, it’s no plot. I don’t think I care much for plots.” And with his mild, steady, light-blue English eye, M. Paul certainly had not much the appearance of a conspirator.
“Isn’t it a new era?” asked Hyacinth, rather disappointed.
“Well, I don’t know; it’s just a little movement.”
“Ah bien, voila du propre; between us we have thrown him into a fever!” cried Madame Poupin, who had put down her bowl on a table near her husband’s bed and was bending over him, with her hand on his forehead. Eustache was flushed, he had closed his eyes, and it was evident there had been more than enough conversation. Madame Poupin announced as much, with the addition that if the young men wished to make acquaintance they must do it outside; the invalid must be perfectly quiet. They accordingly withdrew, with apologies and promises to return for further news on the morrow, and two minutes afterward Hyacinth found himself standing face to face with his new friend on the pavement in front of M. Poupin’s residence, under a street-lamp which struggled ineffectually with the brown winter dusk.
“Is that your name — M. Paul?” he asked, looking up at him.
“Oh, bless you, no; that’s only her Frenchified way of putting it. My name is Paul, though — Paul Muniment.”
“And what’s your trade?” Hyacinth demanded, with a jump into familiarity; for his companion seemed to have told him a great deal more than was usually conveyed in that item of information.
Paul Muniment looked down at him from above broad shoulders. “I work at a wholesale chemist’s, at Lambeth.”
“And where do you live?” “I live over the water, too; in the far south of London.”
“And are you going home now?” “Oh, yes, I am going to toddle.” “And may I toddle with you?” Mr. Muniment considered him further; then he gave a laugh. “I’ll carry you, if you like.”
“Thank you; I expect I can walk as far as you,” said Hyacinth.
“Well, I admire your spirit, and I dare say I shall like your company.”
There was something in his face, taken in connection with the idea that he was concerned in a little movement, which made Hyacinth feel the desire to go with him till he dropped; and in a moment they started away together, and took the direction Muniment had mentioned. They discoursed as they went, and exchanged a great many opinions and anecdotes; but they reached the southeasterly court in which the young chemist lived with his infirm sister before he had told Hyacinth anything definite about his little movement, or Hyacinth, on his side, had related to him the circumstances connected with his being, according to M. Poupin, one of the disinherited. Hyacinth didn’t wish to press him; he would not for the world have appeared to him indiscreet; and, moreover, though he had taken so great a fancy to Muniment, he was not quite prepared, as yet, to be pressed. Therefore it did not become very clear to him how his companion had made Poupin’s acquaintance, and how long he had enjoyed it. Paul Muniment, nevertheless, was, to a certain extent, communicative about himself, and forewarned Hyacinth that he lived in a very poor little corner. He had his sister to keep — she could do nothing for herself; and he paid a low rent, because she had to have doctors, and doses, and all sorts of little comforts. He spent a shilling a week for her on flowers. It was better, too, when you got upstairs, and from the back windows you could see the dome of St. Paul’s. Audley Court, with its pretty name, which reminded Hyacinth of Tennyson, proved to be a still dingier nook than Lomax Place; and it had the further drawback that you had to pass through a narrow alley, a passage between high, black walls, to enter it. At the door of one of the houses the young men paused, lingering a little, and then Muniment said, “I say, why shouldn’t you come up? I like you well enough for that, and you can see my sister; her name is Posy.” He spoke as if this would be a great privilege, and added, humorously, that Posy enjoyed a call from a gentleman, of all things. Hyacinth needed no urging, and he groped his way, at his companion’s heels, up a dark staircase, which appeared to him — for they stopped only when they could go no further — the longest and steepest he had ever ascended. At the top Paul Muniment pushed open a door, but exclaimed, “Hullo, have you gone to roost?” on perceiving that the room on the threshold of which they stood was unlighted.
“Oh dear, no; we are sitting in the dark,” a small, bright voice instantly replied. “Lady Aurora is so kind; she’s here still.”
The voice came out of a corner so pervaded by gloom that the speaker was indistinguishable. “Dear me, that’s beautiful!” Paul Muniment rejoined. “You’ll have a party, then, for I have brought some one else. We are poor, you know, but I dare say we can manage a candle.”
At this, in the dim firelight, Hyacinth saw a tall figure erect itself — a figure angular and slim, crowned with a large, vague hat, surmounted, apparently, with a flowing veil. This unknown person gave a singular laugh, and said, “Oh, I brought some candles; we could have had a light if we had wished it.” Both the tone and the purport of the words announced to Hyacinth that they proceeded from the lips of Lady Aurora.
Chapter VIII
PAUL MUNIMENT took a match out of his pocket and lighted it on the sole of his shoe; after which he applied it to a tallow candle which stood in a tin receptacle on the low mantel