“No, I feel quite safe with you.”
“And what do you say, dear Emilie?”
“I shall love you too, when you do for me what the superioress will tell you to-morrow.”
“I will do anything, but I shan’t come to speak to her till the evening, for it is three o’clock now.”
They laughed all the louder, exclaiming,—
“What will the mother say?”
I paid the bill, gave something to the waiter, and took them back to the convent, where the porteress seemed well enough pleased with the new rules when she saw two sequins in her palm.
It was too late to see the superioress, so I drove home after rewarding the coachman and the lackey.
Margarita was ready to scratch my eyes out if I could not prove my fidelity, but I satisfied her by quenching on her the fires Armelline and the punch had kindled. I told her I had been kept by a gaming party, and she asked no more questions.
The next day I amused the princess and the cardinal by a circumstantial account of what had happened.