"But yes--it is all so bizarre. You must go home and see, my Haidee."
Indeed Haidee registered a resolution to write to Val that very night and ask for a sortie letter to be sent for her to come home for the following Saturday night and Sunday. She was still hating Val with a fierce hatred and had no desire to see her. But this was a thing that had got to be looked into.
"And," continued Madame de Vervanne, with her amiable air of finding everything extremely amusing, "who do I find installed in the studio of Madame Valdana taking tea, indeed making tea, as much at home as if he had collected the sticks for it on the Mascaret beach, but--who do you think, my Cabbage?"
"Goodness knows!" muttered the Cabbage. "Val is mad."
"Why, who but our cher Poulot, Rupert!"
"Rupert! She 's got him, now?" cried Haidee, and her face darkened as definitely as if some one had passed a blacking-brush over it.
"Yes," said the Comtesse softly, reflectively. "It is as you say. First poor dear Sacha, now the innocent Poulot. Who next?" She sighed.
There was a little silence. Then Haidee said:
"Rupert has been twice to see me, once on Sunday and once on Thursday."
"Ah! and did he tell you how many times he went to see Madame Valentine?"