"Then you will be brilliant presently at Madame Gerson's."
"Stop! that's so. It is this evening in fact!—"
He had forgotten it.
Marianne, too, was not free. She was going, she said, to Auteuil for that bill of exchange. Vaudrey did not therefore, regret the soirée. His going to Madame Gerson's was now a matter of indifference to him.
"As for me, I am so happy, oh! so happy!" said Adrienne, clapping her little hands like a child.
In undressing, Vaudrey fortunately found this document which he had folded in four and left in his waistcoat pocket:
"On the first of June next, I will pay to the order of Monsieur Adolphe Gochard of No. 9, Rue Albouy, the sum of One Hundred Thousand Francs, value received in cash.
"SULPICE VAUDREY,
"Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, 37."
He turned pale on reading it. If Adrienne had seen it!—