She drew the curtains and pulled the cord which caused the shade to roll itself up in each of the three tall windows, before returning to the table where she had left her now useless lamp. With a half-terrified look, she began to arrange the pretty little cannon, exquisitely modeled in nickel and bronze, and miniature shot, shell, chain-shot, etc., which she handled with a curiosity rather instinctive than studied. In the midst of her mechanically executed work, she was startled by a gentle rapping on the plate-glass of a window. The sight of a face in the grey morning glimmer startled her still more, but, luckily, she recognized it. After hesitation, she crossed the room in surprise and unbolted the two sashes, which opened like double doors.
"Hedwig!" said a woman's voice warily speaking, "open to me!"
The girl held the sashes widely apart, muttering:
"The mistress! why the mischief has she come back when we were getting on so nicely."
But, letting the new-comer pass her, she tried to smoothe her face, and don the smile as stereotyped in servants as in ballet-dancers, while she continued the letting in of the daylight to gain time to recover her countenance.
Césarine threw off a cloak, trimmed with fur, and more suitable for a colder season, but it was a sable with a sprinkling of isolated white hairs most peculiar and a present from her granduncle. She tottered and seemed weak, for she had concluded that an affection of illness would aid her re-entrance. As Hedwig extinguished the lamp, she sank into an arm-chair. She curiously glanced around and inhaled with a questioning flutter of the nostrils the lasting odor of cigars and Burgundy, which the air retained. In this gloomy apartment where she had often sat alone, sure not to be disturbed, the suggestion of uproarious jollity hurt her dignity. A singular way to express sorrow and shame at the loss of a wife by calling in boon companions! This did not seem like Felix Clemenceau, sober and austere, thus to drown care in champagne.
"Are you alone, girl?" she inquired, looking round with a powerful impression that the house had unexpected inmates.
"Yes. No one is up yet in the house," responded Hedwig, sharing her mistress' uneasiness, though from a less indefinite reason; "at all events, nobody has come down yet. But how did you see that it was I who came in here before the shades were drawn up?"
"Well, I had made a little peep-hole to see what my husband and his fellow conspirator were about, in the time before they shut themselves up in their studio. But, if it is my turn to put questions," she went on with some offended dignity, "how is it that the back door is bolted as well as barred and that I have had to sneak in like a malefactor?"
"If you please, madame, it is the rule to be very careful about fastening up, since you went away."