"It will be."
"Where?"
"At the Theatre Porte-Saint-Martin.... Adieu, madame—Au revoir, Firmin!"
And out I went, carrying my manuscript with me. As I went down the stairs that led from the theatre to the orchestra I turned my head round and saw Mademoiselle Mars and Firmin together, each exchanging questioning glances and gestures. I regret I am unable to transmit the conversation that ensued between them to posterity. I ran off at once to Madame Dorval, who was then residing in the boulevard Saint-Martin, in a house with an exit to the rue Meslay. By chance she happened to be quite alone. When I was announced she had my name repeated twice to her.
"All right!" I shouted from the dining-room; "it is I. But perhaps you wish to have me shown outside the door?"
"Oh! you're a pretty fellow!" she said to me, in those drawling accents that were sometimes such a charm in her; "I have not seen you for six months!"
"What would you have me do, my dear!" I said, entering and throwing my arms round her neck,—"during that time I have produced a child and a revolution, without reckoning that I have been nearly shot twice.... Is this how you greet the ghosts?"
"I cannot embrace you, my good dog."
This was the pet name of friendship—even, I may say, of love—that Dorval had given me.
Her good dog has remained faithful to his poor Dorval to the end!