‘Are we to fetch Sappho?’ suddenly asked the younger woman.
‘No, she purposes coming later, and on foot.’
Madeleine heard the name without a thrill.
The coach rolled on, and Madeleine sat as if petrified. Suddenly she galvanised herself into activity. In a few minutes they would be there, and if she allowed herself to arrive in this condition all would be lost. Why should she let these two horrid women ruin her chance of success? She muttered quickly to herself:—
‘Oh! blessed Virgin, give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry,’ and then started gabbling through her prepared scene.
‘“Ah, dear Zénocrite, here you come, leading our new bergère!” cries the lady on the bed. “Welcome, Mademoiselle, I have been waiting with impatience to make your acquaintance.”’
Would she get it finished before they arrived? She felt all her happiness depended on it.
‘“Madame, it would have been of no consequence, for the Sibyl herself would have taken the conqueror captive.... But, Mademoiselle, what, if you will pardon my curiosity, induced you to leave your agreeable prairies?”’
They were passing the Palais Cardinal—soon they would turn down the rue St Thomas du Louvre—she had not much time.
The coach was rolling into the court of the Hôtel de Rambouillet and she had not finished. They got out. A tall woman, aged about thirty, with reddish hair and a face badly marked by smallpox, but in spite of these two blemishes of an extremely elegant and distinguished appearance, came towards them, screwing up her eyes in the manner of the near-sighted. Her top petticoat was full of flowers; she was too short-sighted to recognise Madame Cornuel till she was quite close, then she dropped a mock-low curtsey, and drawled ‘Ma-a-a-dame.’ Madame Cornuel laughed: evidently she had imitated a mutual acquaintance. With a sudden sense of exclusion Madeleine gave up hope.