Hilaire did not wait to hear more. He saw at a glance whence the blows came, and took himself off with an alacrity which passengers, who were jostling each other as they left the station, considered devoid of manners. He did not stop, however, until he was outside the station, where, under cover of his car, he could await events. As a measure of precaution he set the engine going.
To his amazement he did not have to wait long. Mademoiselle Zoé appeared, surrounded by a delighted mob. She held in her hand a few shreds of her hat, from which the feathers had departed, and her nose was bleeding.
Hilaire did not at first show his face, but when she passed close to him, searching on either side, obviously endeavoring to find him, and when he had made sure that Virginie was still in the station, he stepped forward quickly, flung her, rather than seated her, in the car, leaped to his seat, and drove off in a great style amid the shouts and cheering of an enthusiastic public.
They had not gone far outside the town when he turned round to ask Zoé, through the lowered window, what she had done with his wife.
"I gave her a pretty good dressing down," returned the charming Zoé. "We were both of us hauled off to the chief inspector's office. They took down our names and addresses. As my papers were in order they let me go, but as Madame had no papers at all they put her in the train which was starting for Paris."
"How was it that she had no papers?"
"Because I pinched them before I left. Look, here they are!" exclaimed softly the artful creature, opening her wrist-bag.
M. Hilaire betrayed such inordinate satisfaction and steered the car so wildly, that Mademoiselle Zoé implored him not to afford Madame Hilaire yet awhile the joy of becoming a widow. Thereupon M. Hilaire suggested that Zoé should come and sit on the seat beside him, a proposal which she straightway accepted.
"Madame certainly had an idea that I was leaving," said Zoé.
"Don't let's speak about her," returned M. Hilaire. "Let's hope that she'll have a pleasant journey. Don't let's bother about her."