taught her some of its profoundest secrets, was the steadiest light of them all. She asked nothing and took nothing, yet had never failed him. And we are all constituted so selfishly, he reflected, that we must have at least one person who never fails. Usually it's a mother; sometimes it's a dog.
He arrived at the cafe at the hour of dusk. Familiar faces were there; two or three voices greeted him politely. But Marthe was absent, and after he had taken a seat in her old corner and given his order, Mme. Annoni, climbing down from the caisse, advanced with an air of mystery to talk to him.
"Have you heard?" she asked, and Grover's heart grew cold with dread.
Marthe was in an insane asylum.
"For several weeks," Madame explained, "we noticed something strange. She would be weeping one day and laughing drunk the next. Then one night she came running in, in her stocking feet. Figurez-vous, Monsieur—correct in every detail, hat—coat—and stocking feet! And screaming, and laughing, and waving her arms-and a crowd of people outside the door. When the agents arrived she was playing a violin that she had snatched from the top of the piano—scraping it horribly, without sense, and as earnestly as though she were giving a recital in the Salle Gaveau."
Grover was weak with sorrow and pity and loneliness.
