“What is it, Georges?” asked the Dufour, who had glided to the door after him, the ermine slipping half off her shoulders.
“The guard have captured a man who has just made an entrance into the building, and they would like me to have a look at him before marching him off.”
“How interesting!” cried the actress. “What a coup de théâtre! Do not go down to him, Georges! Let them bring him up here! This might have been arranged for us. What was he doing?”
Nobody could answer that question but Valentine, and she only in part. Camain hesitated a moment, but only a moment. “Very well,” he said. “Tell them to bring him up here,” he added to the National Guard.
A hot flame of indignation ran over the Duchesse. The Comte de Brencourt, a gentleman, was then to be made a show for the passing curiosity of a courtesan and her friends! But what had he been about, in daylight too? The same question no doubt was exercising the Deputy, for he turned round, his look seeking her out; and, being half a head taller than any one else in the room, he easily found her.
“Here is a pretty find to be made on your domain, Madame Vidal!” he said. The voice sounded jocular, but she was not sure of the genuineness of that jocularity. She was saved the necessity of a reply by a remark from one of the ladies, winged by a malicious side-glance at her, the shabby, middle-aged caretaker; “Perhaps it is the Prince come after the Sleeping Beauty!”
Half ashamed, the men sniggered too. Valentine’s anger, lit in spite of her contempt, served usefully to steady her. “It is more likely, Monsieur le Député,” she said coldly, “that he has come after something in this room—there are valuables here, are there not?”
“At the moment, most certainly!” cut in one of the youngish men, bowing with a fatuous air in the direction of Rose and the others.
“But in the daytime!” said Camain musingly. His eyes strayed to the jasper cup. “I’ll have the room made surer.”
“And I shall beg leave to give up the key,” said Valentine, her head high. Anything to foster the idea of ordinary theft.