“Then I will re-engage you––on one condition. 42 That is, that you remain a while with my nephew and tell me everything he does. I have heard, on the contrary, that––”
Picard almost danced a pas seul. “Oh, that is the way the wind lies! The sly dog!––And I thought of leaving him. She must be a saucy and jaunty little minx, whoever she is! Oh, yes, I will find out everything that you require.”
With eye to keyhole the valet reporter saw the frequent innocent parleys of Maurice and Henriette, which he construed as an intrigue. He was quite ecstatic with happiness now. The police Prefect, finding his suspicions privately confirmed, bluntly refused police aid to the Chevalier’s hunt for Louise. He spoke pointedly and (as he hoped) with effect:
“Monsieur, you must give up your association with these common people. I have other plans for you that will shortly mature.”
The angry Count could not be crossed. De Vaudrey’s sole hope lay in his Aunt.
Ceaselessly Henriette spent her days in trying to trace Louise. Her quest became 43 the neighborhood gossip. Strangers interested themselves and offered clues to herself and the Chevalier––clues that proved quite futile.
To her doorstep a great pock-marked man, bushy-browed and of knob-like visage, was walking one day with her finicky dandified neighbor M. Robespierre. As he passed, the titan turned and inquired kindly:
“Are you the little girl who lost her sister?”
He spoke with a gentle sympathy that touched her and even his cursing reference to the abductions: “Damned aristocrats! The people are going to stop that sort of thing!” did not phase her, for she looked up into his face and trustfully replied: