My father burst into a Titanic roar of laughter.
"Said I so?" shouted he. "Thunder and Mars! I did not remember that I had ever said anything half so epigrammatic!"
Now from this it will be seen that the prisoner and I were already acquainted. We had, indeed, taken to each other from the first, and our mutual liking ripened so rapidly that before a week was gone by we had become the fastest friends in the world.
Our first meeting, as I have already said, took place upon the terrace. Our second, which befell on the afternoon of the same day when my father and I had held the conversation just recorded, happened on the stairs. Monsieur Maurice was coming up with his hat on; I was running down. He stopped, and held out both his hands.
"_Bonjour, petite_," he said, smiling. "Whither away so fast?"
The hoar frost was clinging to his coat, where he had brushed against the trees in his walk, and he looked pale and tired.
"Home? Did you not tell me you lived in the Château?"
"So I do, Monsieur; but at the other side, up the other staircase. This is the side of the state-apartments."
Then, seeing in his face a look half of surprise, half of curiosity, I added:--
"I often go there in the afternoon, when it is too cold, or too late for out-of-doors. They are such beautiful rooms, and full of such beautiful pictures! Would you like to see them?"
"Thanks, petite," he said, "I am too cold now, and too tired; but you shall show them to me some other day. Meanwhile, suppose you come up and pay me that promised visit?"
I assented joyfully, and slipping my hand into his with the ready confidence of childhood, turned back at once and went with him to his rooms on the second floor.
Here, finding the fire in the salon nearly out, we went down upon our knees and blew the embers with our breath, and laughed so merrily over our work that by the time the new logs had caught, I was as much at home as if I had known Monsieur Maurice all my life.
"_Tiens_!" he said, taking me presently upon his knee and brushing the specks of white ash from my clothes and hair, "what a little Cinderella I have made of my guest! This must not happen again, Gretchen. Did you not tell me yesterday that your name was Gretchen?"