She waited a moment, looking at him. Without softening the hardness of
his glance, he made a sign to her to continue.

"When I persisted on the consultation, Madame Dammauville recalled what I
had said, and she was the first--you hear?--the first to pronounce your
name. As you had cured my mother, I had the right to praise you. With a
nature like hers, she would not have understood if I had not done it; she
would have believed me ungrateful. I spoke of your book on the diseases
of the spinal cord, which was quite natural; and as she manifested a
desire to read it, I offered to lend it to her."

"Was that natural?"

"With any but Madame Dammauville, no; but she is not frivolous. I took
the book to her two days ago, and she has just told me that, after
reading it, she has decided to send for you."

"I shall certainly not go; she has her own physician."

"Do not imagine that I have come to ask you to pay her a visit; all is
arranged with Monsieur Balzajette, who will write to you or see you, I do
not know which."

"That will be very extraordinary on the part of Balzajette!"

"Perhaps you judge him harshly. When Madame Dammauville spoke to him of
you he did not raise the smallest objection; on the contrary, he praised
you. He says that you are one of the rare young men in whom one may have
confidence. These are his own words that Madame Dammauville told me."