Then there was a lady from the shop, _Au Bonheur des chers Petits_, to be greeted very cordially, and the old domino-player, who, Brigit learned, was a cousin.
There was something very charming in the simplicity of Joyselle's pleasure in seeing his boyhood's friends, and something almost ludicrous in his perfectly obvious joy in their homage.
Looking down at him in his oft-interrupted progress, Brigit told herself that things must turn out all right. "He is so good-natured and generous and strong," she reflected, with glad shifting of all responsibility, "he will surely find some way out."
When at last she heard his light, regular footfall coming down the passage she rose and went to meet him.
"So the Conquering Hero has come," she teased. "I have been watching your advance down the street. Such a strut!"
"Did I strut? I daresay. They are my own people and I love their affection. Also, as you say, it pleases my vanity. _Hélas_, my dear, I am very vain."
She put on her hat and took up her gloves.
"I thought Théo was coming for me, Glorieux."
His face changed. "No, my dear love. It is _my_ town, this. Here I was born, here I lived as a child. I must show it to you."
Taking her hand he laid it on his arm with a gentle little pat and led her proudly downstairs.
Opposite No. 6 Rue Victor Hugo is a long black wall, and in the middle of this wall an old-fashioned gas lantern was glowing red when Joyselle and Brigit arrived.
The moon had risen, and mingling with the red of the gas made that part of the narrow street almost as light as if it had been high noon.
"There is the house, ma Brigitte," murmured Joyselle, pressing her hand close to his side. When she had left the inn arm-in-arm with him, she had felt as though they must look perilously like a German bride and groom, but there was in his old-fashioned bearing as he guided her through the streets a kind of chivalrous courtesy that she liked, and she began to feel like a princess being presented to his people by her lord.
"There is their house. I gave it to them twenty-five years ago. It is their palace, their country-place, their world, to my old people."
Through a half-door in the opposite wall the girl could just catch a glimpse of the left side of the house. It was hung with trumpet flowers.