“No,” replied Martin. “I was walking with mademoiselle, who, as she may have told you, is a friend of Mademoiselle Corinna.” “Yes, yes, she told me that,” said Bigourdin. “There is no need of explanations, _mon ami_. But I am glad you did not go to the café. I ought to have warned you. We must be very discreet towards the Viriots. There is no longer any marriage. Félise doesn’t want it. Her father has formally forbidden it. I have no desire to make anybody unhappy. But there it is. _Foutu, le mariage._ And I haven’t said anything as yet to the Viriots. And, again, I can’t say anything to Monsieur Viriot, until he says something to me. _Voilà la situation. Cest d’une délicatesse extraordinaire._” He passed his hand over his head and tried to grip the half-inch stubble. “I tell you this, _mon cher_ Martin, because you know the intimate affairs of the family. So”—he shook an impressive finger—“act towards the Viriots, father and son, as if you knew nothing, nothing at all. _Laissez-moi faire._” Martin pledged the discretion of the statues in the old Alhambra tale. What did the extraordinary delicacy of the situation between Bigourdin and the Viriots matter to him? When he reached his room, he laughed aloud, oblivious of Bigourdin, the Viriots and poor little Félise who (though he knew it not) lay achingly awake. At last a woman, a splendid wonder of a woman, a woman with the resplendent dignity of the King’s daughter of the fairy tales, with the bewilderment of beauty of face and of form and of voice like the cooing of a dove, with the delicate warm sympathy of sheer woman, had come into his life. The usually methodical Martin threw his shirt and trousers across the room and walked about like a lunatic in his under things, until a sneeze brought him to the consciousness of wintry cold. The only satisfying sanction of romance is its charm of intimate commonplace. CHAPTER XIV THEY had further talk together the next afternoon. A lost remnant of golden autumn freakishly returned to warm the December air. The end of the terrace caught a flood of sunshine wherein Lucilla, wrapped in furs and rugs and seated in one of the bent-wood rocking-chairs brought out from winter quarters for the occasion, had established herself with a book. The little dog’s head appeared from under the rug, his strange Mongolian eyes staring unsympathetically at a draughty world. Martin sauntered out to breathe the beauty of the hour, which was that of his freedom. He explained the fact when she informed him that Félise and Bigourdin had both left her a few minutes before in order to return to their duties. Martin being free, she commanded him to stay and entertain her.