The f.m.c.had just raised him and borne him out of the alley when Honore came up.
"And you say that, when you would have inquired for him at Frowenfeld's, you saw Palmyre there, standing and talking with Frowenfeld?
Tell me more exactly." And the other, with that grave and gentle economy of words which made his speech so unique, recounted what we amplify: Palmyre had needed no pleading to induce her to exonerate Joseph.

The doctors were present at Frowenfeld's in more than usual number.

There was unusualness, too, in their manner and their talk.

They were not entirely free from the excitement of the day, and as they talked--with an air of superiority, of Creole inflammability, and with some contempt--concerning Camille Brahmin's and Charlie Mandarin's efforts to precipitate a war, they were yet visibly in a state of expectation.
Frowenfeld, they softly said, had in his odd way been indiscreet among these inflammables at Maspero's just when he could least afford to be so, and there was no telling what they might take the notion to do to him before bedtime.

All that over and above the independent, unexplained scandal of the early morning.