"Cook, father, cook!" said Mario, "the lieutenant is looking at you!"
"He may look at me all he chooses, my son; I know how to handle a saucepan as well as Master Pignoux himself."
"That's the truth," said the hostess; "anyone would swear that you had studied cooking!"
"I studied it in the field, Madame Pignoux; I have made a fricassee for my Henri with my sword at my side and my helmet on my head. Who would have dreamed that I would ever do the same for a Macabre and his better half? She is some prostitute, I fancy!"
At that moment Madame Proserpine's voice rose above the others, which had drowned it thus far.
"Pah! how it smells of burned fat!" she exclaimed; "it is enough to make one sick! Let's go up; let's go up at once! Come, lieutenant, give me your hand, sacrebleu!"
Monsieur de Bois-Doré and his son glanced at each other then looked down into their saucepans.
This amazon, who, after conversing confidentially with the captain and lieutenant at the door of the inn, now strode slowly across the kitchen, resplendent in her warlike costume, and tossing beneath the multicolored plumes of her headgear her abundant bright red mane, this Madame Proserpine, the more or less lawful spouse of Captain Macabre, was the marquis's former housekeeper, Mario's personal enemy, Guillette Carcat of La Châtre, Bellinde of Briantes.
"We are lost," thought the marquis; "she will surely recognize us!"
"We are saved," thought Mario; "she does not recognize us!"