Louise looked wildly round her, but the grass-green hat kept on doing its work, it was quite impossible for M. le Comte to believe her story; it was out of his power even for an instant to suppose that the little hands he loved could have touched anything so impossible.
"You tell lies, my good girl," he said. "It may be possible that you will drop down dead like Sapphira, who followed the example of Ananias, her husband. Go quickly, before my anger begins to boil. Hasten before I attack you with a pistol! There are times when I lose self-control, and that chapeau—mon Dieu! That chapeau! Go at once, I beseech of you, before I do an injury, which may mean la mort!"
Louise was by now thoroughly frightened. The grand, disdainful manner of la petite Comtesse was nothing to the terrifying manner of le Comte himself.
She did not even wait to speak to Gustave; a shower began to fall from the heavens, and her grass-green hat marked her face with grass-green tints the reverse of becoming as she hurried down the avenue. The woman at the lodge laughed as she saw her, but she was good-natured and did not want to see anyone in trouble.
"Madame la Comtesse and la petite Comtesse Margot are out," she said. "I knew well you would have your walk for nothing; but behold! you shall enter my humble dwelling. Le chapeau, why it is a figure of fun. Where did you buy it, Mam'selle?"
Louise was too cross to reply, but she was not too cross to accept the shelter of the little lodge which was offered to her. She was not there two or three minutes before who should walk in but Madame.
Madame la Comtesse looked very charming. She stared fixedly at Louise and Louise sprang to her feet.
"I must speak to you," she said. "I must talk words all alone."
"I mind not," said la Comtesse. "You will leave us, Susette!"
"Then listen—you are a lying woman," said Louise, "and your granddaughter, she serves in the établissement of Madame Marcelle. Behold for yourself, she sold me this chapeau!"