“What has brought you here?” he inquired.—He adopted the familiar tu. The formality of vous was out of the question to a woman he must get rid of.
“Why, my love,” cried she, “have you not read my letters?”
“Certainly I have,” said Lousteau.
“Well, then?”
“Well, then?”
“You are a father,” replied the country lady.
“Faugh!” cried he, disregarding the barbarity of such an exclamation. “Well,” thought he to himself, “she must be prepared for the blow.”
He signed to the coachman to wait, gave his hand to Madame de la Baudraye, and left the man with the chaise full of trunks, vowing that he would send away illico, as he said to himself, the woman and her luggage, back to the place she had come from.
“Monsieur, monsieur,” called out little Pamela.
The child had some sense, and felt that three women must not be allowed to meet in a bachelor’s rooms.