"Who was with him--some man, I suppose?" she asked of the squirrel
poisoner, who stood quietly adoring her with eyes dimmed by drink and
years. He had so settled down on his rheumatic old joints that he had
become dwarfish in stature as well as gnarled in shape, and looked a
gnomelike thing, gazing up at the tall young woman.
"Oh, yes, it was a man, of course," Simeon assured her. "There couldn't be
any women for him who knows you, it seems to me, my lady. And you were
never as handsome as you are this night. It warms the heart to set eyes on
you, like the wine you give me on your birthdays, to drink your health."
Carmen was pleased with praise, even a squirrel poisoner's praise. She
could never have too much.
"You needn't wait for my birthday," she laughed. "I don't mean to have
another for a good long time, Sim! You can have some of that wine
to-night."
"Thank you, my lady. It's an anniversary, too," he mumbled, lowering his
husky voice for the last words. But Carmen heard them. "You remember
that!" she exclaimed, without stopping to think, or perhaps she would not
have spoken.
"Oh, yes, my lady, I remember," he said. "There's reasons--several good
reasons--why I shan't forget that as long as I live.
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