“Positively,” approved the editor of “The Financial Pilot,” “she is somewhat better than the rest of those ladies we have just seen going by.”
M. Costeclar was on the point of pulling out what little hair he had left.
“And I don’t know her!” he went on. “A lovely woman rides in the Bois, and I don’t know who she is! That is ridiculous and prodigious! Who can post us?”
A little ways off stood a group of gentlemen, who had also just left their carriages, and were looking on this interminable procession of equipages and this amazing display of toilets.
“They are friends of mine,” said M. Costeclar: “let us join them.”
They did so; and, after the usual greetings,
“Who is that?” inquired M. Costeclar,—“that dark person, whose carriage follows Mme. de Thaller’s?”
An old young man, with scanty hair, dyed beard, and a most impudent smile, answered him,
“That’s just what we are trying to find out. None of us have ever seen her.”
“I must and shall find out,” interrupted M. Costeclar. “I have a very intelligent servant.”