"Well, well! What a baby you are!" said the disgusting Messaline; "are you such a novice?"
"No, madam; but…."
"But what?"
"I have…."
"Oh, the villain!" she exclaimed, loosing her hold; "what was I going to expose myself to!"
I availed myself of the opportunity, snatched my hat, and took to my heels, afraid lest the door-keeper should stop me.
I took a coach and drove to Coraline's, where I related the adventure. She laughed heartily, and agreed with me that the prince had played me a nasty trick. She praised the presence of mind with which I had invented an impediment, but she did not give me an opportunity of proving to her that I had deceived the duchess.
Yet I was not without hope, and suspected that she did not think me sufficiently enamoured of her.
Three or four days afterwards, however, as we had supper together and alone, I told her so many things, and I asked her so clearly to make me happy or else to dismiss me, that she gave me an appointment for the next day.
"To-morrow," she said, "the prince goes to Versailles, and he will not return until the day after; we will go together to the warren to hunt ferrets, and have no doubt we shall come back to Paris pleased with one another."