" I replied that
we could not benefit in any way. My sole object was to effect a
reconciliation between husband and wife. "Will you explain why you gave
yourself that trouble?" I never have smiled so grimly as I did then.
How could I explain my precious pursuit of the eumoirous to a French
Procureur-general? How could I put before him the point of view of a
semi-disembodied spirit? I replied with lame lack of originality that
my actions proceeded from disinterested friendship. "You are a pure
altruist then?" said he. "Very pure," said I. . . . It was only the
facts of the scabbard of the knife having been found attached to the
dwarf's person beneath his clothes, and of certain rambling menaces
occurring in his Sultan papers that saved us from the indignity of being
arrested and put into the dock. . . .
During all this time I remained at the hotel at Mustapha Superieur. Lola
moved to a suite of rooms in another hotel a little way down the hill. I
saw her daily. At first she shrank from publicity and refused to go out,
save in a closed carriage to the town when her presence was necessary
at the inquiries.
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