He saw no more of Père Trouché, he noticed once or twice Williams hovering at a distance, black and scowling, and almost expected he was about to receive from him some new threat or warning. But Williams wandered away again with anything he had wished to say still unuttered. Perhaps, Bobby thought, he had been merely watching, though for what purpose Bobby found it difficult to guess. From some of the passers-by who occasionally stopped to look at his work—often with intelligent interest, not merely with the amusement English people feel on seeing a grown man occupy himself with brush or pencil —he learnt that the elder Volny was fulminating threats against his absent son, who was, it appeared, to be disinherited, forbidden the house, married to some strong- minded, sensible, not-too-young woman, who would know how to keep him in order, and generally to suffer various other pains and penalties as soon as he reappeared, which so far he had shown no sign of doing. Also it seemed that Monsieur Volny had visited Lucille, accused her in a stormy scene of being privy to his son’s disappearance, and announced that if she tried to follow him, unpleasant consequences would follow.
