“Stupid, I have the pass-key.”
Beausire uttered an Ah! full of admiration, and fled.
With brisk feet and thoughtful head, Nicole returned to her mistress, leaving Gilbert alone, to cogitate the questions which this interview excited. All he could guess of the puzzles was how the girl had obtained the money. This negation of his perspicacity was so goading to his natural curiosity or his acquired mistrust—have it either way—that he decided to pass the night in the open air, cold though it was, under the damp trees, to await the sequel to this scene.
A huge black cloud, coming out of the south, covered all the sky, so that beyond Versailles the sombre pall gradually lapped up all the stars which had been gleaming a while before in their azure canopy.
Nicole feared that some whim of her mistress would contravene her plan, and with that air of interest which the artful cat knew so well how to take, she said:
“I am afraid that you are not very well to-night; your eyes are red and swollen; I should think repose would do you good.”
“Do you think so? perhaps it would,” answered Andrea, without paying much heed, but extending her feet on a rug as she sat.
The girl accepted this reclining pose as a signal for her to take down her mistress’s headdress for the night; the unbuilding of a structure of ribbons, flowers and wire, which the most skillful “house-breaker” could not have demolished in an hour. Nicole was not a quarter of that time doing it.
The toilet for the night being completed, Andrea gave her orders for the coming day. The tuner was to come for her harpsichord and some books which Philip had sent to Versailles were to be fetched. Nicole tranquilly answered that if she were not roused in the night she would be up early, and would do everything before her mistress rose.
As Andrea, in her long night wrapper, was dreaming in her chair, Nicole put two drops of the draught Richelieu had given her, into the glass of drink on the night-table. Turbid for a moment, the water took an opal tint which faded away gradually.