"You or she, no matter which," he answered, when Noemi, having fastened
the muffler with a pin, at last set the swathed novelist at liberty. "Go
wherever you like, provided you go towards the centre of the town, and
return by the other side of the Lac d'Amour, and talk of something that
interests you particularly."

"With you present?" said Noemi. "How can that be possible?"

Carlino explained that he would not walk with them, but would follow,
note-book and pencil in hand. They would be obliged to halt from time to
time according to his pleasure, and must be prepared to obey any other
orders he might see fit to issue. "Very well," said Noemi, "first let us
go to the Quai du Rosaire to see the swans."

They set forth in the direction of Notre Dame. Carlino twenty yards
behind his sister and Noemi. At first a lively altercation was kept up
through the deserted streets between the van and rearguard. The vanguard
walked too fast, and Carlino shouted: "At ninety? at ninety?" or they
laughed, and Carlino exclaimed: "What are you laughing at? Hush!" or
stopped to gaze at an ancient church, its gables, and pinnacles looming
weird in the moonlight, the cemetery nestling close by; Carlino, again
interrupting, would beg them to talk, converse, gesticulate. "Don't
stare into space," said he. A mutiny broke out in the vanguard, Noemi
being the more petulant. She turned on the _Dyver_, and stamping her
foot, protested that she would go home if this most tiresome novelist in
a muffler did not cease ordering and complaining. Jeanne then whispered:

"Tell me about your monk." "The monk, oh yes," answered Noemi, and
called to Carlino that they would try to satisfy him, but that he must
keep farther off.