“He is standing up; he’s going,” she said with satisfaction.
But a moment later she saw she had made a mistake; the little old man had only left his chair to walk up and down the room and continue the conversation with greater freedom.
“My gracious! I shall certainly go in,” she said, “and tell Thuillier we are going without him, and he can follow us.”
So saying, the old maid gave two little sharp and very imperious raps on the door, after which she resolutely entered the study.
La Peyrade, goaded by anxiety, had the bad taste to look through the keyhole himself at what was happening. Instantly he thought he recognized the small old man he had seen under the name of “the commander” on that memorable morning when he had waited for Madame de Godollo. Then he saw Thuillier addressing his sister with impatience and with gestures of authority altogether out of his usual habits of deference and submission.
“It seems,” said Brigitte, re-entering the salon, “that Thuillier finds some great interest in that creature’s talk, for he ordered me bluntly to leave them, though the little old fellow did say, rather civilly, that they would soon be through. But Jerome added: ‘Mind, you are to wait for me.’ Really, since he has taken to making newspapers I don’t know him; he has set up an air as if he were leading the world with his wand.”
“I am very much afraid he is being entangled by some adventurer,” said la Peyrade. “I am pretty sure I saw that old man at Madame de Godollo’s the day I went to warn her off the premises; he must be of the same stripe.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” cried Brigitte. “I’d have asked him for news of the countess, and let him see we knew what we knew of his Hungarian.”
Just then the sound of moving chairs was heard, and Brigitte darted back to the keyhole.
“Yes,” she said, “he is really going, and Thuillier is bowing him out respectfully!”