"That is all over now, madame, and I am sorry, for the callers were very generous to me. It appears that the War Ministry do not approve of strangers running about Montmorency and into the abode of the great inventor of ordinances--" "Ordnance, child," corrected Madame Clemenceau. "And the house is sealed up, as you found it, against all comers. We have nobody here for you to try graces upon except Mademoiselle Rebecca's papa--and he being a Jew, you must not go near him, fresh from the confessional." Madame Clemenceau seemed to be musing. "I forgot--there's young M. Antonino," continued the servant. Césarine made a contemptuous gesture, expressive of the conquest being too easy. "Such sallow youth are best left to platonic love, it's more proper, and to them, quite as entertaining." "Well, madame," said Hedwig, like a cheap Jack, holding up the last of his stock, "they are the only men I can offer you; for, since we have been firing off guns and cannon, our neighbors have moved away right and left--we are so lonely. No servant would stay a week!" "Those the only men?" said the returned fugitive; "Hedwig, this is not polite for your master." "Oh, madame, a husband never counts." "You are very much mistaken. He does _count_--his money, I suppose, if that is his cash-box." And, yielding to her girlish curiosity, she went over to the steel-plated chest and avariciously contemplated it, "Not at all, madame. That is where they lock up the writings and drawings about the new gun!" "Oh, what do they say?" "Nothing a Christian can make head or tail of," returned the servant reservedly. "They write now in a hand no honest folk ever used. An old man who ought to have known better--the Jew--he taught the master, and they call it siphon--" "Cipher, I suppose? It appears the newspapers are right!" resumed the lady. "He is a great man!" and she clapped her hands. Hedwig regarded her puzzled, till her brow unwrinkling at last, she exclaimed: "Upon my word, I believe you have fallen in love with master." "You might have said: I am still in love. That is why I return to his side." "If you tell him that is the reason," said this speaker, who used much Teutonic frankness to her superiors, "you will astonish him more than you did me by popping in this morning. He will not believe you." Madame Clemenceau smiled as those women do who can warp men round to their way of thinking. "But he will! Besides, if it is a difficult task, so much the better--when a deed is impossible, it tempts one." "Well, as far as I can see, madame, that is an odd idea for you to have had when far away from master." "Pish! did you never hear the saying that 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder?' Oh, girl, I had so much deep meditation as I stared at the dim night-light," and she shuddered and looked a little pale. "Well, madame, I should have rolled over and shut my eyes," said the matter-of-fact maid.