To which Léontine faltered: “Y—y—yes, Papa Bouchard.”
“Well, then,” cried Papa Bouchard, assuming an air of triumphant virtue to poor de Meneval, “I hope you see the enormity of your conduct.”
“I can’t say I do,” sullenly replied de Meneval.
“Very well, very well,” continued Papa Bouchard, realizing that he held all the trumps in the game. “Do you want to go into the whole business of this necklace? If you do there is no time like the present. Do you, Léontine, want the matter sifted to the bottom?”
De Meneval remained gloomily silent, while Léontine murmured, “N—no, Papa Bouchard.”
Papa Bouchard, having thus effectually silenced both of them, felt master of the situation, but all the same, he was desperately anxious to reach Paris in advance of the de Menevals, so that he could get on Madame Vernet’s track before they should. He was pretty sure that she could not slip away from her apartment without leaving some trace. There was another train going almost immediately, and there would be no more till eleven o’clock. It would be exceedingly convenient for him to get an hour’s start of the de Menevals. So it occurred to him that if he were to propose a little more champagne Léontine and de Meneval would never run away and leave it, but he could and would.
“Now,” said he, with an air of benevolence, “everything having been straightened out about the necklace, suppose we have a bottle of champagne before returning to Paris. Here, waiter!”
François immediately responded with a bottle of champagne.
De Meneval had never supposed that anything would be too pressing to drag him away from good champagne, but he inwardly swore, as Léontine silently fretted, at the delay that might prevent him from making the next train to Paris. Both of them gulped down the champagne rather than drank it, while Papa Bouchard, alleging that he had already taken several glasses, declined any more. Every moment or two he looked at his watch, and he said to Léontine:
“Will you be going back to Paris to-night, Léontine?”