The old lady, who was engaged to nobody (and who, what was much worse,
never had been), resented his loud voice and his way of handling his
violin-case as if it had been a baby. "Sir," she said, "you are crowding
me."

"_Sacré nom d'une pipe_--I beg your pardon, madame, but you must not
push that box. You must not _touch_ it," he returned, all his smiles
gone and a ferocious frown joining his big black eyebrows. "It contains
my violin, madame, my Amati!"

Brigit, convulsed with laughter, laid her hand on his arm as if she had
known him for years, and he became like a lamb at her touch.

"I beg your pardon, madame," he added, smiling angelically (and an
angelic smile on a dark, middle-aged face is a very winning thing), "I
will put it over here."

Then, his beloved fiddle safe from profane touch, he again turned to
Brigit.




CHAPTER SIX


Number 57 Golden Square was dark when Joyselle's cab stopped in front of
it, and he, after tenderly depositing his violin-case under the little
portico, assisted Brigit to alight. "They are, of course, in the
kitchen," he remarked as he paid the cabby. "Come, _ma belle_."