"This is my friend, Doctor Rocke, Mademoiselle; Doctor, this is my
friend, Mademoiselle Mont de St. Pierre!"
Traverse bowed profoundly, and the lady arose, curtsied and resumed her
seat, saying, coldly: "I have told you, Monsieur, never to address me as Mademoiselle; you
persist in doing so, and I shall never notice the insult again."
"Ten thousand pardons, madame! But if madame will always look so young,
so beautiful, can I ever remember that she is a widow?"
The classic lip of the woman curled in scorn, and she disdained a
reply.
"I take an appeal to Monsieur Le Docteur--is not madame young and
beautiful?" asked the Frenchman, turning to Traverse, while the
splendid, black eyes of the stranger passed from the one to the other.
Traverse caught the glance of the lady and bowed gravely. It was the
most delicate and proper reply.
She smiled almost as gravely, and with a much kinder expression than
any she had bestowed upon the Frenchman.
"And how has madame fared during my absence so long? The servants--have
they been respectful? Have they been observant? Have they been obedient
to the will of madame? Madame has but to speak!" said the doctor,
bowing politely.
"Why should I speak when every word I utter you believe, or affect to
believe, to be the ravings of a maniac? I will speak no more," said the
lady, turning away her superb dark eyes and looking out of the window.
"Ah, madame will not so punish her friend, her servant, her slave!"
A gesture of fierce impatience and disgust was the only reply deigned
by the lady.
"Come away; she is angry and may become dangerously excited," said the
old doctor, leading the way from the cell.
"Did you tell me this lady is one of the incurables?" inquired
Traverse, when they had left her apartment.
"Bah! yes, poor girl, vera incurable, as my sister would say."
"Yet she appears to me to be perfectly sane, as well as exceedingly
beautiful and interesting."
"Ah, bah; my excellent, my admirable, my inexperienced young friend,
that is all you know of lunatics! With more or less violence of
assertion, they every one insist upon their sanity, just as criminals
protest their innocence. Ah, bah! you shall go into every cell in this
ward and find not one lunatic among them," sneered the old doctor, as
he led the way into the next little room.
It was indeed as he had foretold, and Traverse Rocke found himself
deeply affected by the melancholy, the earnest and sometimes the
violent manner in which the poor unfortunates protested their sanity
and implored or demanded to be restored to home and friends.