He fastened the letter to the parcel and lowered both through the window with a length of string:
"Good," he said. "That's all right. It's a weight off my mind."
He waited a few minutes longer, stalking up and down the room and smiling at the portraits of two gallant gentlemen hanging on the wall:
"Horace de Sarzeau-Vendôme, marshal of France.... And you, the Great Condé ... I salute you, my ancestors both. Lupin de Sarzeau-Vendôme will show himself worthy of you."
At last, when the time came, he took his hat and went down. But, when he reached the ground-floor, Angélique burst from her rooms and exclaimed, with a distraught air:
"I say ... if you don't mind ... I think you had better...."
And then, without saying more, she went in again, leaving a vision of irresponsible terror in her husband's mind.
"She's out of sorts," he said to himself. "Marriage doesn't suit her."
He lit a cigarette and went out, without attaching importance to an incident that ought to have impressed him:
"Poor Angélique! This will all end in a divorce...."