"What a courageous man you are, M. de Macreuse, to steal at night, with an accomplice, into the room of a young girl you believe to be alone, in order to secure a cowardly revenge for the humiliation that M. de Maillefort, who knows you, inflicted upon you in public!" added Ernestine.
Macreuse and Ravil listened to these sarcasms in silence, interchanging wrathful looks the while.
"My dear Herminie," resumed Mlle. de Beaumesnil, whose countenance was gradually regaining its accustomed serenity, "I may seem very silly to you, and it may be that the great happiness we have experienced to-day has upset me a little, but really all this seems so utterly absurd and ridiculous to me that I can scarcely help laughing."
"I, too, must admit that it seems ridiculous, and even grotesque, to me."
"The discomfiture of these scoundrels is really pitiable," remarked Mlle. de Beaumesnil, bursting into a hearty laugh this time.
"The impotent rage of these conspirators, who excite mirth rather than fear, is extremely amusing," chimed in Herminie, no less gaily.
In fact, the bewilderment of these two scoundrels, who did not consider themselves in the least subjects for mirth, was so ludicrous that the orphans, either because their happiness had, indeed, made them bold, or because they were really brave enough to face this danger unflinchingly, gave way to another burst of feverish, vindictive gaiety,—feverish, because the two girls were naturally excited by the very strangeness of the situation, vindictive, because they were fully conscious of the disappointment and exasperation they were causing Macreuse and Ravil.
The intruders, momentarily disconcerted by the unexpected presence of Herminie, and by the strange hilarity of the young girls, soon began to recover their assurance.
Macreuse, whose drawn features were assuming a more and more threatening expression, whispered a few words in Ravil's ear, whereupon that worthy hastily stepped to the only window in the room, and slipped a small steel chain around the fastening, thus effectually closing the window as well as the inside shutters, and then united the two ends of the chain with a padlock.
This done, it was impossible, of course, to open either the window or shutters from the inside and call for help.