Betty’s sensitive ear lost no slightest shade of the sneer amidst all the jovial manner; it was not wasted upon her. It stung her to the quick. From any other mouth it would have passed her by, a dog’s snap. It revealed to her in one ugly moment that all the work she had done to increase his ease for work, all her forbearing patience to his encroachment upon her own working hours, all her care to free his hands from drudgeries and release his wits to the full concentration on his career, all was already largely forgotten--worse, had been scarcely appreciated. And, somehow, the wild spirits of the evening failed to reach her; she was in a daze, she had received a buffet full in the face from the hand from which she had least feared it. And it was the sign of her splendid selflessness that she was sickeningly struck with pity that he could be guilty of this meanness--she was filled with a strange bewildering shame, not because the blow had been delivered, not because it had struck her, but that it had come from the one in all the world who, more than any, fouled his hand in the act. She flinched from that punishment as from an abyss that yawned. CHAPTER LXI _Wherein the Landlord of_ The Scarlet Jackass _is unable to sing his Song_ At the tavern of _The Scarlet Jackass_ the hero of the evening was a young poet who had that day found a publisher. The wines and ale went round. Amidst uproar they were crowning the old mad poet Gattepoésie with a wreath of pure white roses, where he sat blinking and smiling in a chair upon a table, that he, having uttered a panegyric upon the new immortal, after the manner of the Academy, might conduct him to the chair and crown him; and it was in the midst of the resulting fooleries that Noll, nudging Horace Malahide, noticed the absence of André Joyeux--missing the flow of his rollicking wit and the effect of his commanding personality. He signed to one of the waiters, an enormous stout man, chosen by André because he resembled Renan in his Academic uniform. “Garçon,” said he--“where is the master?” He was resting--upstairs--in the room just over the tavern. He was only allowed to drink milk--he was in need of rest. The young Englishmen said they would go up and see him, and the waiter leading the way, the two young fellows followed him up the private stair. At the door the waiter knocked, and left them. They entered. On his bed lay André Joyeux, his face deathly pale, and a drawn look about the eyes. He received the two young fellows affectionately, held Noll’s hand, embraced Horace. Noll found himself mute. But the sick man saw that he was affected, and patted him on the shoulder--it was only nerves, he said--it would pass--he would soon be giving them Proud as kings and loud as carters, Live they who live on the Hill of Martyrs --they should have the rousing chorus---- The distant sound of laughter below checked him, and brought a frown to his knit brows.