“Nothing has happened, Mademoiselle, except that your friend, Mademoiselle Rosanne de Soigné, has come to see you,” Proté replied, lighting a candle as she spoke.
Rosanne came up to the bed and, before Marie Josephine, in her bewilderment, could speak, said eagerly:
“You are to come with me, Marie Josephine. Proté is to dress you at once. You shall not be left out of the ball. Listen! I know a place where we can see it all, watch the dancing, and hear the music! Gonfleur is to bring us goûter when the others are having theirs. It will be the greatest fun!”
Marie Josephine was so surprised for a moment that she could not speak.
“Hurry, for we must not miss any of it. Proté has your stockings. Let her put them on,” urged Rosanne.
Marie Josephine stuck out her foot obediently, and Proté, kneeling beside her, pulled on the stockings, muttering to herself distressfully:
“This is dreadful. What if Madame la Comtesse should know! May the good saints protect me if Madame should find us out!”
When Proté said this, Marie Josephine seemed to wake up to the situation and, leaning over, patted the round knob at the back of the little maid’s head.
“You are a foolish girl, Proté. Have you not raged to me and to Monsieur Lisle because I was not invited? You even spoke to Le Pont. I heard you say to her, 'They must have been selfish indeed to have so forgotten the Little Mademoiselle!’”
While Marie Josephine was speaking, Proté was putting on her little silken undergarments, fastening the tapes which tied them with nervous fingers. Then she slipped a light silk frock over her head and put a blue cape about her shoulders.