Léontine rose and looked around her. On the sideboard sat a couple of bottles of mineral water, and on the floor near by a wine cooler full of bottles of champagne. She cleverly transferred the labels from two of the champagne bottles to the apollinaris bottles and then put them in the wine cooler.
“I think I can drink at least a quart of apollinaris,” she said.
“And I’ll see that you get apollinaris every time,” replied that crafty villain of a Fallière, laughing.
“And I’m Satanita, and I shall act Satanita until I have made Victor sorry enough he ever played me any tricks.”
“Oh, no, you won’t! At the first sign of distress on his part you will throw the whole business to the winds, fall on his neck and implore his forgiveness. I know women well.”
“Of course you do—having never been married. But wait and see if I don’t give him a bad quarter of an hour. And I reckon on your assistance.”
“I will stand by you to the last.”
They were interrupted at this point by a great sound of scuffling outside the door, mingled with shrieks of girlish laughter. The door flew open, revealing three remarkably pretty girls—Aglaia, Olga and Louise—dragging in an elderly gentleman by main force and his coat tails. The elderly gentleman was resisting mildly but with no great vigor, and it was plain he was not particularly averse to the roguish company in which he found himself. And the elderly gentleman was—Papa Bouchard!
One of these merry imps from the Pigeon House had possessed herself of his hat, which she had stuck on her curly head; another one had laid violent hands on his umbrella, while the third and sauciest of the lot, Aglaia, had robbed him of his spectacles, which she wore on her tiptilted nose. Papa Bouchard, puffing, protesting, frightened, but laughing in spite of himself, was saying: