The invalid drank her soup and ate her chicken. She had been duped again, and she knew it. Her only consolation was the fact that she had not parted with the louis.
At six she rang for a light. The maid who answered the summons not only brought a lamp, but put a lighted taper to all the candles about the dressing-table.
“Ma foi!” cried the Comtesse. “I did not tell you to light those.”
“It is by my mistress’s orders,” replied the maid, lighting, as she spoke, several more candles that stood on the bureau, till the room had almost the appearance of a chapelle ardente—an appearance that was helped out by the corpse-like figure on the bed. Then the maid went out.
CHAPTER VII
THE ARTIST
FIVE minutes later a knock came to the door, and a man entered. It was Ferminard. He was carrying the stiff brocade dress of Madame de Béarn over his left arm. In his right hand he carried a wig-block, on which was a wig such as then was worn by the elderly women of the Court.
The thing carried by Ferminard was less a wig than a structure of hair, a prefiguration of those towers and bastions with which the ladies of the sixteenth Louis’ reign adorned their heads. Hideous bastilles, which one would fancy did not require arming with guns to frighten Love from making any attack on the wearers.
Under his right arm Ferminard also carried a rolled-up parcel. He made a bow to the occupant of the bed as he entered, and then advanced straight to the dressing-table, where he deposited the wig-block and the parcel, whilst the door closed, drawn to by someone in the corridor outside.