“He asks that as if he were asking if it’s a plum-pudding,” said M. Poupin. “It isn’t good to eat, and we don’t do it for our amusement. It’s terribly serious, my child.” “It’s a group of workers to which he and I and a good many others belong. There’s no harm in telling him that,” the young man went on. “I advise you not to tell it to Mademoiselle; she’s quite in the old ideas,” Madame Poupin suggested to Hyacinth, tasting her _tisane_. Hyacinth sat baffled and wondering, looking from his fellow-labourer in Soho to his new acquaintance opposite. “If you’ve some plan, something to which one can give one’s self, I think you might have told me,” he remarked in a moment to Poupin. The latter merely viewed him a little as if he were a pleasing object and then said to the strange young man: “He’s a little jealous of you. But there’s no harm in that; it’s of his age. You must know him, you must like him. We’ll tell you his history some other day; it will make you feel that he belongs to us of necessity. It’s 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’ve my little sister at home to take care of when I ain’t at the works,” 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,” smiled M. Paul. “Do you like them to thrust themselves into your apartment like that because you’ve the _désagrément_ 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’re not a cripple; you’ve 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’re patient, you other English.” “We shall never do anything without that,” said M. Paul with undisturbed good-humour. “You’re 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 rather a 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 volunteered presently, giving a little nod in the direction of the bed, “He says we ought to know each other. I’m sure I’ve nothing against it. I like to know folk if they’re likely to be 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?”