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.
“Well, well!” said Lousteau, dragging Dinah along.
Pamela concluded that the lady must be some relation; however, she added:
“The key is in the door; your mother-in-law is there.”
In his agitation, while Madame de la Baudraye was pouring out a flood of words, Etienne understood the child to say, “Mother is there,” the only circumstance that suggested itself as possible, and he went in.
Felicie and her mother, who were by this time in the bed-room, crept into a corner on seeing Etienne enter with a woman.
“At last, Etienne, my dearest, I am yours for life!” cried Dinah, throwing her arms round his neck, and clasping him closely, while he took the key from the outside of the door. “Life is a perpetual anguish to me in that house at Anzy. I could bear it no longer; and when the time came for me to proclaim my happiness—well, I had not the courage.—Here I am, your wife with your child! And you have not written to me; you have left me two months without a line.”
“But, Dinah, you place me in the greatest difficulty—”