"You think so?"
"I am quite certain. Listen! Don't you hear?"
In fact the rapping was renewed.
"Walk in!" cried the Count.
A valet presented himself, looking disconcerted, and said to the Count anxiously:
"Monsieur Count, his Eminence—"
"My uncle!" exclaimed the Count of Plouernel, looking no less disconcerted than his valet, and hastily rising to his feet.
"Yes, Monsieur Count. Monsignor the Cardinal arrived last night in the city from his trip abroad, and—"
"A Cardinal!" cried Pradeline, interrupting the valet with boisterous peals of laughter, already oblivious of the matters that seemed to preoccupy her mind a minute before. "A Cardinal! That's a rare sight! That's a thing one does not find every day at Mabille's or at Valentino's! A Cardinal! I've never seen one. I must give myself a treat."
Whereupon she forthwith improvised to the tune of her favorite song: