M. de Mornand bowed low before Ernestine without uttering a word, but as he straightened himself up he cast a meaning glance at the hunchback.
That gentleman answered it by pointing to one of the doors of the gallery towards which he, too, directed his steps, leaving Mlle. de Beaumesnil in a state of great mental perturbation.
This little scene had passed unnoticed, the few words interchanged between the marquis and M. de Mornand having been uttered in subdued tones and in the midst of the confusion that always accompanies the forming of a quadrille, so no one but Madame de la Rochaiguë and the Duchesse de Senneterre had the slightest suspicion of what had occurred.
M. de Mornand on his way to the gallery was accosted successively by M. de la Rochaiguë and M. de Ravil, who had watched with mingled wonder and uneasiness their protégé's futile efforts to induce the heiress to keep her engagement.
"What! you are not going to dance?" inquired De Ravil.
"What has happened, my dear M. de Mornand?" asked the baron, in his turn. "I thought I saw you talking with that accursed hunchback, whose insolence and audacity really exceed all bounds."
"You are right, monsieur," replied the prospective minister, his face darkening. "M. de Maillefort seems to think he can do anything he pleases. Such insolence as his must be put a stop to. He actually had the impertinence to forbid your ward's dancing with me."
"And she obeyed him?" exclaimed the baron.
"What else could the poor girl do after such an injunction?"
"Why this is abominable, outrageous, inconceivable!" exclaimed the baron. "I will go to my ward at once, and—"