The incomparable August was busied in removing the chocolate-pot and the empty cup, but presently observing the silence, he looked around. The marquis was holding something between his thumb and forefinger, and his eyes were as big as teacups. His face was a sight to see. August was startled out of his composure. He hastily set the waiter with the china upon the window-seat, and hurried to the bedside.
"What is it, monseigneur?" said he.
His voice roused the marquis.
"Where is the lady who came in the carriage?" he cried, excitedly. "Run, stop her!" He flung the bedclothes off himself and jumped with one bound out upon the floor.
Once again August was startled out of his decorum. "Monseigneur!" Then, recovering himself again: "The lady, monseigneur, is gone."
The gardener, working upon the terrace below, heard the rattle of a window flung violently open, and, upon looking up, was very much surprised to behold Monseigneur the Marquis, still clad in his colored dressing-gown, and with his nightcap thrust tipsily over one side of his head. So the marquis stood looking out of the window staring into space, for he had no more idea who it was that had stopped at the door and had left him a diamond worth twenty-five thousand livres than if he had never been born. "Ha!" thought he; "the letter; it was signed Oliver de Monnière." Thereupon he drew his head in and shut the window again.
Scene Fourth.—The parlor of the house in Flourens.
Oliver's mother has returned some little time from the château, and Oliver and she are talking it over between them.