My suspicions, never more than half laid, promptly raised their
heads again.
"Have the kindness," I requested, with a calm air of command that I had
known to prove hypnotic, "to convey my card to mademoiselle, and to say
that I beg of her, before her departure, one little instant of speech."
But the old fellow's faded blue eyes were gazing past me, hopelessly
sad, supremely mournful. What the deuce ailed him? I wondered angrily.
The thing was almost weird. Of a sudden, with irritation, yet with
dread, too, I felt myself on the threshold of a house of tragedy. The
man might, from the look of him, have been watching some loved young
master's bier.
"Mademoiselle regrets greatly," he intoned, "but she may not receive.
Mademoiselle sends this letter to monsieur that he may understand." He
passed me, through the locked grille, a slender missive; then he saluted
me once more and, still staring before him with that fixed, uncanny
look, withdrew.
CHAPTER XII
THE GRAY CAR
I was divided between exasperation and pity. The old fellow was in a
bad way; I felt sorry for him.
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