“Does he know about it?”
“No, you'll explain the affair to him yourself,” she replied.
She looked at him, thinking that he couldn't know anything or he would not employ her in this way with the baron, affecting to consider him simply as an old friend of hers. But he still held her hand, he called her his good Henriette, and she felt her heart melting. Silently she presented her lips, pressed them to his, then whispered: “Oh, they're waiting for me. Come in behind me.”
They could hear voices issuing from the principal drawingroom, deadened by the heavy curtains. She pushed the door, leaving its two folds open, and handed the fan to one of the four ladies who were seated in the middle of the room.
“There it is,” said she; “I didn't know exactly where it was. My maid would never have found it.” And she added in her cheerful way: “Come in, Monsieur Mouret, come through the little drawing-room; it will be less solemn.”
Mouret bowed to the ladies whom he knew. The drawingroom, with its flowered brocatel Louis XVI. furniture, gilded bronzes and large green plants, had a tender feminine air, notwithstanding the height of the ceiling; and through the two windows could be seen the chestnut trees in the Tuileries Gardens, their leaves blowing about in the October wind.
“But it isn't at all bad, this Chantilly!” exclaimed Madame Bourdelais, who had taken the fan.
She was a short fair woman of thirty, with a delicate nose and sparkling eyes, an old school-fellow of Henriette's, and who had married a chief clerk in the Treasury. Of an old middle-class family, she managed her household and three children with a rare activity and good grace, and an exquisite knowledge of practical life.
“And you paid twenty-five francs for it?” resumed she, examining each mesh of the lace. “At Luc, I think you said, to a country woman? No, it isn't dear; but you had to get it mounted, hadn't you?”
“Of course,” replied Madame Desforges. “The mounting cost me two hundred francs.”