“Aure, my dear Aure, take care! if you take to calling names again, you know the effect they produce upon me, and I shall adore you.” And so saying, Malicorne drew the young girl a second time towards him. But at that instant a step resounded on the staircase. The young people were so close, that they would have been surprised in the arms of each other, if Montalais had not violently pushed Malicorne, with his back against the door, just then opening. A loud cry, followed by angry reproaches, immediately resounded. It was Madame de Saint-Remy who uttered the cry and the angry words. The unlucky Malicorne almost crushed her between the wall and the door she was coming in at.
“It is again that good-for-nothing!” cried the old lady. “Always here!”
“Ah, madame!” replied Malicorne, in a respectful tone; “it is eight long days since I was here.”
CHAPTER 78.
In which we at length see the true Heroine of this History appear
Behind Madame de Saint-Remy stood Mademoiselle de la Valliere. She heard the explosion of maternal anger, and as she divined the cause of it, she entered the chamber trembling, and perceived the unlucky Malicorne, whose woeful countenance might have softened or set laughing whoever observed it coolly. He had promptly intrenched himself behind a large chair, as if to avoid the first attacks of Madame de Saint-Remy; he had no hopes of prevailing with words, for she spoke louder than he, and without stopping; but he reckoned upon the eloquence of his gestures. The old lady would neither listen to nor see anything; Malicorne had long been one of her antipathies. But her anger was too great not to overflow from Malicorne on his accomplice. Montalais had her turn.
“And you, mademoiselle; you may be certain I shall inform madame of what is going on in the apartment of one of her ladies of honor!”
“Oh, dear mother!” cried Mademoiselle de la Valliere, “for mercy’s sake, spare——”
“Hold your tongue, mademoiselle, and do not uselessly trouble yourself to intercede for unworthy people; that a young maid of honor like you should be subjected to a bad example is, certes, a misfortune great enough; but that you should sanction it by your indulgence is what I will not allow.”
“But in truth,” said Montalais, rebelling again, “I do not know under what pretense you treat me thus. I am doing no harm, I suppose?”
“And that great good-for-nothing, mademoiselle,” resumed Madame de Saint-Remy, pointing to Malicorne, “is he here to do any good, I ask you?”