Mlle. Violette went to the window of the balcony on the roof which looked out on to the street. And she pointed to a man wearing a soft hat and an overcoat with the collar turned up, walking with his hands in his pockets, his stick under his arm.
"Yes, that's the man!" she cried. "The wretch follows Giselle every day. We shall have to lodge a complaint."
Declining to listen to his wife, who, greatly distressed, begged him to stay where he was, Didier rushed wildly out of the room.
* * * * *
In truth, in our ordinary, prosaic life men of nobility of mind and goodness of heart are ever eager to throw themselves into the cause of virtue. We may say of these men that they are true knights, for they never lose an opportunity of flying to the rescue of beauty in distress, untouched by any selfish motive or even by the least thought of reward. Such a man was Captain d'Haumont.
He had already "done enough" for Giselle by helping her to escape from poverty and enter a good business; and he was entitled to consider that any claim upon his charitable instincts had been fully met. He might have rested content with that. Giselle was old enough to protect herself from the annoyance of a chance wayfarer or even from the deep-laid plots of a rascal.
Indifference or contempt on the one hand and a feeling of weariness and wounded pride on the other are enough, as a general rule, to cool the first ardor of a villain who, in his self-complacency, thinks that no one is able to resist him.
Captain d'Haumont bounded wildly down the stairs, darted into the street, and looked about for his man, or rather Giselle's man, with the gestures of a bulldog longing for a bite, and it might almost seem as if he had taken leave of his senses.
What was Françoise to think about it? She might very well say to herself: "Well, if he gets into such a state of excitement over a stranger to whom someone has been lacking in respect, what will he do when any man looks at me askance? Good gracious, he couldn't possibly show more righteous indignation!" She became quite dejected by the reflection. But as she was, in her own way, inspired with sentiments which did not fall short in generosity those entertained by Captain d'Haumont, whom she loved more for himself than for herself—which is the crowning test of love—she quickly discarded thoughts which she regarded as selfish, and her sole apprehension was as to what lay in store, in this attack, for the man for whom she would have given her life.
Mlle. Giselle was no less anxious as to what might happen to her protector, and she expressed aloud her regret for not keeping silent; but she was not aware that Captain d'Haumont was in the room; and, in particular, she had no idea that he would take the matter so much to heart. Her agitation, her apologies, her sorrow, were so sincere and expressed with such real candor that though Françoise might have felt within her as a result of her husband's action—charitable, doubtless, but of an exaggerated charity—a natural antipathy to Giselle, she was the first to console her.