Bigourdin passed his hand over his face. “I went to sleep last night in a commonplace world, I wake up this morning to a fantastic universe in which I seem to be a leaf, like those outside”—he threw a dramatic arm—“driven by the wind. I don’t know whether I am on my head or my heels. Arrange things as seems best to you.”
“You accept me then as waiter in the Hôtel des Grottes?”
“_Mon cher_,” said Bigourdin, “in the state of upheaval in which I find myself I accept everything.”
The upheaval or rather overthrow—for he used the word “_bouleversement_”—of the big man was evident. He sat the dejected picture of defeat. No man in the throes of sea-sickness ever cared less what happened to him. Fortinbras looked at him shrewdly and his thick lips formed themselves into a noiseless whistle. Then he exchanged a glance with Martin, who suddenly conjectured the reason of Bigourdin’s depression.
“She ought to be spanked,” said he in English.
Fortinbras beamed on him. “You do owe something to me, don’t you?”
Félise, her face full of affairs of high importance ran into the _salle-à-manger_.
“_Mon Oncle_, le Père Didier sends word that he has decided not to kill his calf till next week. What shall we do?”
“We’ll eat asparagus,” Bigourdin replied and lumbered out into the November drizzle.
Three pairs of wondering eyes sought among themselves a solution of this enigmatic utterance.
“_Mais qu’est-ce que cela veut dire?_” cried Félise, with pretty mouth agape.
“It means, my child,” said Fortinbras, “that your uncle, with a philosopher’s survey of the destiny of the brute creation, refuses to be moved either to ecstatic happiness or to ignoble anger by the information that the life of the obscure progeny of a bull and a cow has been spared for seven days. For myself I am glad. So is our tender-hearted Martin. So are you. The calf has before him a crowded week of frisky life. Send word to Père Didier that we are delighted to hear of his decision and ask him to crown the calf with flowers and send him along to-day for afternoon tea.”
He smiled and waved a dismissing hand. Félise, laughing, kissed him on the forehead and tripped away, having little time to spare for pleasantry.
The two men smoked in silence for some time. At last Fortinbras, throwing the butt end of his cigarette into Corinna’s coffee-bowl, rose, stretched himself and yawned heartily.