When this low, roomy equipage drawn by two magnificent horses stopped at the cross-roads, two tall, powdered footmen descended from their perch, and one of them opened the carriage door, through which the Dowager-Marquise de Pont Brillant alighted quite nimbly in spite of her eighty-eight years; after which another woman, quite as old as the dowager, also stepped out.
The other footman, taking one of the folding-chairs which invalids or very old people often use during their walks, was preparing to follow the two octogenarians when the marquise said, in a clear though rather quavering voice:
"Remain with the carriage, which will wait for me here. Give the folding-chair to Zerbinette."
To answer to the coquettish, pert name of Zerbinette at the age of eighty-seven seems odd indeed, but when she entered the service of her foster-sister, the charming Marquise de Pont Brillant, seventy years before, as assistant hair-dresser, her retroussé nose, pert manner, big, roguish eyes, provoking smile, trim waist, small foot, and dimpled hand richly entitled her to the sobriquet bestowed upon her at that time by the marquise, who, married direct from the convent at the age of sixteen, was already considerably more than flirtatious, and who, struck by her assistant hair-dresser's boldness of spirit and unusual adaptability for intrigue, soon made Zerbinette her chief maid and confidante.
Heaven only knows the good times and larks of every sort this pair had enjoyed in their palmy days, and the devotion, presence of mind, and fertility of resource Zerbinette had displayed in assisting her mistress to deceive the three or four lovers she had had at one time.
The deceased husband of the marquise need be mentioned only incidentally in this connection; in the first place because one did not take the trouble to deceive a husband in those days, and in the second place because the high and mighty seigneur Hector-Magnifique-Raoul-Urbain-Anne-Cloud-Frumence, Lord Marquis of Pont Brillant and half a dozen other places, was too much of a man of his time to interfere with madame, his wife, in the least.
From this constant exchange of confidences on the part of the marquise and of services of every sort and kind on the part of Zerbinette there had resulted a decided intimacy between mistress and maid. They never left each other, they had grown old together, and their chief pleasure now consisted in talking over the escapades and love affairs of former years, and it must be admitted that each day had its saint in their calendar.
The dowager-marquise was small, thin, wrinkled, but very straight. She dressed in the most elaborate fashion and was always redolent with perfumes. She wore her hair crimped and powdered, and there was a bright red spot on each cheek that increased the brilliancy of her large black eyes, which were still bold and lustrous in spite of her advanced age. She carried a small gold-headed ivory cane, and a richly jewelled snuff-box from which she regaled herself from time to time.
Zerbinette, who was a little taller than her mistress, but equally thin, wore her white hair in curls, and was attired with simple elegance.
"Zerbinette," said the dowager, after turning to take another look at the footman who had opened the carriage door, "who is that tall, handsome fellow? I don't remember to have seen him before."