This seemed to arouse him, for he opened a drawer and took out a blank to be filled for a passport, with an impatient shrug of his shoulders, as it he was bored to death.
Now followed the most hateful and trying quart d'heure I ever passed in my life. I fancy Raoul Rigault had never been in the society of a lady (perhaps he had never seen one), and his innate coarseness seemed to make him gloat over the present situation, and as a true republican, whose motto is Égalité, Fraternité, Liberté, he flattered himself he was on an equality with me, therefore he could take any amount of liberty. He took advantage of the unavoidable questions that belong to the making out of a passport, and showed a diabolical pleasure in tormenting la citoyenne who stood helplessly before him.
When it came to the description and the enumerating of my features, he was more obnoxious than I can express. Peering across the table to see whether my eyes were brown or black, or my hair black or brown, he never lost an opportunity to make a fawning remark before writing it down. He described my teint as pâle; I felt pale, and think I must have looked very pale, for he said: "Vous êtes bien pâle, Madame. Voudriez-vous quelque chose à boire?" Possibly he may have meant to be kind; but I saw BORGIA written all over him. I refused his offer with effusion.
When he asked me my age, he said, insinuatingly, "Vous êtes bien jeune,
Madame, pour circuler seule ainsi dans Paris."
I answered, "Je ne suis pas seule, Monsieur. Mon mari [I thought it best to tell this lie] m'attend dans la voiture de Monsieur Washburn et il doit être bien étonné de ma longue absence."
I considered this extremely diplomatic.
Turning to the man at the mantelpiece, he said, "Grousset, do you think we ought to allow the citoyenne to leave Paris?"
Grousset (the man addressed) stepped forward and looked at Mr. Washburn's card, saying something in an undertone to Rigault, which caused him instantly to change his manner toward me (I don't know which was worse, his overbearing or his fawning manner).
"You must forgive me," he said, "if I linger over your visit here. We don't often have such luck, do we, Grousset?"
I thought I should faint!