In her over-wrought state of mind, she had even felt the small irritating influence of an entangled pocket. She was in no temper to endure simple questions patiently. "Look at the pink curtains, you fool!" she said--and s.n.a.t.c.hed the key out of his hand.

Jack instantly resented the language and the action. "I didn't come here to be insulted," he declared in his loftiest manner.

Madame Fontaine secured the poison in the cupboard without noticing him, and made him more angry than ever.

"Take back your new gloves," he cried, "I don't want them!" He rolled up his gloves, and threw them at her. "I wish I could throw all the cake I've eaten after them!" he burst out fervently.

He delivered this aspiration with an emphatic stamp of his foot. The hysterical excitement in Madame Fontaine forced its way outwards under a new form. She burst into a frantic fit of laughter. "You curious little creature," she said; "I didn't mean to offend you. Don't you know that women will lose their patience sometimes? There! Shake hands and make it up. And take away the rest of the cake, if you like it." Jack looked at her in speechless surprise. "Leave me to myself!" she cried, relapsing into irritability. "Do you hear? Go! go! go!"

Jack left the room without a word of protest. The rapid changes in her, the bewildering diversity of looks and tones that accompanied them, completely cowed him. It was only when he was safe outside in the corridor, that he sufficiently recovered himself to put his own interpretation on what had happened. He looked back at the door of Madame Fontaine's room, and shook his little gray head solemnly.

"Now I understand it," he thought to himself "Mrs. Housekeeper is mad.

Oh, dear, dear me--Bedlam is the only place for her!"

He descended the first flight of stairs, and stopped again to draw the moral suggested by his own clever discovery. "I must speak to Mistress about this," he concluded. "The sooner we are back in London, the safer I shall feel."

CHAPTER VI

Mrs. Wagner was still hard at work at her desk, when Jack Straw made his appearance again in the private office.

"Where have you been all this time?" she asked. "And what have you done with your new gloves?"

"I threw them at Madame Fontaine," Jack answered. "Don't alarm yourself.

I didn't hit her."

Mrs. Wagner laid down her pen, smiling. "Even business must give way to such an extraordinary event as this," she said. "What has gone wrong between you and Madame Fontaine?"

Jack entered into a long rambling narrative of what he had heard on the subject of the wonderful remedy, and of the capricious manner in which a supply of it had been first offered to him, and then taken away again.

"Turn it over in your own mind," he said grandly, "and tell me what your opinion is, so far."

"I think you had better let Madame Fontaine keep her medicine in the cupboard," Mrs. Wagner answered; "and when you want anything of that sort, mention it to me." The piece of cake which Jack had brought away with him attracted her attention, as she spoke. Had he bought it himself?

or had he carried it off from the housekeeper's room? "Does that belong to you, or to Madame Fontaine?" she asked. "Anything that belongs to Madame Fontaine must be taken back to her."

"Do you think I would condescend to take anything that didn't belong to me?" said Jack indignantly. He entered into another confused narrative, which brought him, in due course of time, to the dropping of the key and the picking of it up. "I happened to read 'Pink-Room Cupboard' on the handle," he proceeded; "and when I asked what it meant she called me a fool, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the key out of my hand. Do you suppose I was going to wear her gloves after that? No! I am as capable of self-sacrifice as any of you--I acted n.o.bly--I threw them at her. Wait a bit! You may laugh at that, but there's something terrible to come. What do you think of a furious person who insults me, suddenly turning into a funny person who shakes hands with me and bursts out laughing? She did that. On the honor of a gentleman, she did that. Follow my wise example; keep out of her way--and let's get back to London as soon as we can. Oh, I have got a reason for what I say. Just let me look through the keyhole before I mention it. All right; there's n.o.body at the keyhole; I may say it safely. It's a dreadful secret to reveal--Mrs. Housekeeper is mad! No, no; there can be no possible mistake about it. If there's a creature living who thoroughly understands madness when he sees it--by Heaven, I'm that man!"

Watching Jack attentively while he was speaking. Mrs. Wagner beckoned to him to come nearer, and took him by the hand.

"No more now," she said quietly; "you are beginning to get a little excited."

"Who says that?" cried Jack.

"Your eyes say it. Come here to your place."

She rose, and led him to his customary seat in the recess of the old-fashioned window. "Sit down," she said.

"I don't want to sit down."

"Not if I ask you?"

He instantly sat down. Mrs. Wagner produced her pocket-book, and made a mark in it with her pencil. "One good conduct-mark already for Jack," she said. "Now I must go on with my work; and you must occupy yourself quietly, in some way that will amuse you. What will you do?"

Jack, steadily restraining himself under the firm kind eyes that rested on him, was not in the right frame of mind for discovering a suitable employment. "You tell me," he said.

Mrs. Wagner pointed to the bag of keys, hanging over his shoulder. "Have you cleaned them yet?" she asked.

His attention was instantly diverted to the keys; he was astonished at having forgotten them. Mrs. Wagner rang the bell, and supplied him with sandpaper, leather, and whiting. "Now then," she said, pointing to the clock, "for another hour at least--silence and work!"

She returned to her desk; and Jack opened his bag.

He spread out the rusty keys in a row, on the seat at his side. Looking from one to the other before he began the cleansing operations, he started, picked out one key, and held it up to the light. There was something inscribed on the handle, under a layer of rust and dirt. He s.n.a.t.c.hed up his materials, and set to work with such good will that the inscription became visible in a few minutes. He could read it plainly--"Pink-Room Cupboard." A word followed which was not quite so intelligible to him--the word "Duplicate." But he had no need to trouble himself about this. "Pink-Room Cupboard," on a second key, told him all he wanted to know.

His eyes sparkled--he opened his lips--looked at Mrs. Wagner, busily engaged with her pen--and restrained himself within the hard limits of silence. "Aha! I can take Mrs. Housekeeper's medicine whenever I like,"

he thought slily.

His faith in the remedy was not at all shaken by his conviction that Madame Fontaine was mad. It was the Doctor who had made the remedy--and the Doctor could not commit a mistake. "She's not fit to have the keeping of such a precious thing," he concluded. "I'll take the whole of it under my own charge. Shall I tell Mistress, when we have done work?"

He considered this question, cleaning his keys, and looking furtively from time to time at Mrs. Wagner. The cunning which is almost invariably well developed in a feeble intelligence, decided him on keeping his discovery to himself. "Anything that belongs to Madame Fontaine must be taken back to her"--was what the Mistress had just said to him. He would certainly be ordered to give up the duplicate key (which meant giving up the wonderful remedy) if he took Mrs. Wagner into his confidence. "When I have got what I want," he thought, "I can throw away the key--and there will be an end of it."

The minutes followed each other, the quarters struck--and still the two strangely a.s.sociated companions went on silently with their strangely dissimilar work. It was close on the time for the striking of the hour, when a third person interrupted the proceedings--that person being no other than Madame Fontaine again.

"A thousand pardons, Mrs. Wagner! At what time can I say two words to you in confidence?"

"You could not have chosen your time better, Madame Fontaine. My work is done for to-day." She paused, and looked at Jack, ostentatiously busy with his keys. The wisest course would be to leave him in the window-seat, harmlessly employed. "Shall we step into the dining-room?"

she suggested, leading the way out. "Wait there, Jack, till I return; I may have another good mark to put in my pocket-book."

The two ladies held their conference, with closed doors, in the empty dining-room.

"My only excuse for troubling you, madam," the widow began, "is that I speak in the interest of that poor little Jack, whom we have just left in the office. May I ask if you have lately observed any signs of excitement in him?"

"Certainly!" Mrs. Wagner answered, with her customary frankness of reply; "I found it necessary to compose him, when he came to me about an hour ago--and you have just seen that he is as quiet again as a man can be. I am afraid you have had reason to complain of his conduct yourself?"

Madame Fontaine lifted her hands in gently-expressed protest. "Oh, dear, no--not to complain! To pity our afflicted Jack, and to feel, perhaps, that your irresistible influence over him might be required--no more."

"You are very good," said Mrs. Wagner dryly. "At the same time, I beg you to accept my excuses--not only for Jack, but for myself. I found him so well behaved, and so capable of restraining himself in London, that I thought I was running no risk in bringing him with me to Frankfort."

"Pray say no more, dear madam--you really confuse me. I am the innocent cause of his little outbreak. I most unfortunately reminded him of the time when he lived with us at Wurzburg--and in that way I revived one of his old delusions, which even your admirable treatment has failed to remove from his mind."

"May I ask what the delusion is, Madame Fontaine?"

"One of the commonest delusions among insane persons, Mrs. Wagner--the delusion that he has been poisoned. Has he ever betrayed it in your presence?"

"I heard something of it," Mrs. Wagner answered, "from the superintendent at the madhouse in London."

"Ah, indeed? The superintendent merely repeated, I suppose, what Jack had told him?"

"Exactly. I was careful not to excite him, by referring to it myself, when I took him under my charge. At the same time, it is impossible to look at his hair and his complexion, without seeing that some serious accident must have befallen him."