“But Madame the Duchess is in bed. I dare not,” replied the man.
“Very well,” replied Bess, coolly, and making a dash for the stairs at her right; “I can find my way without any of you stupid lackeys.”
She had no difficulty, once in the corridor, in marking Madame de Beaumanoir’s room; and when she knocked loudly at the door, a maid appeared.
“I want to see your mistress, this moment,” cried Bess, in agitation.
“I am afraid it is impossible; madame is in her bed, with the curtains drawn,” replied the woman, civilly enough.
Bess wasted no words on her, as she had wasted none on the lackey, and with one strong arm thrusting the maid aside, she entered the anteroom, and marched through to the bedroom, where a night-light burned by a great green and gold bed. The maid, recovering herself, dashed after her; but Bess waved her back, and seizing the bed-curtain, drew it back. As she did so, Madame de Beaumanoir, who was in the bed, uttered a piercing shriek, and disappeared under the bedclothes. This conduct, so astonishing on Madame de Beaumanoir’s part, staggered Bess; but she held her ground stoutly.
The maid then began adding her screams to Madame de Beaumanoir’s,—
“Go away! go away! Madame wishes you to leave the room at once! For God’s sake, go!”
Bess, more and more amazed, still declined to budge. Madame de Beaumanoir, under the bedclothes, continued to emit shrieks; but the maid, ceasing her noise, ran to a chiffonier, and taking from it a wig and a set of Paris teeth, returned to the bed, motioning frantically to Bess, upon whom light began to break.
“I will go into the anteroom for five minutes,” she said, loftily; “but I shall return at the end of that time, as I am compelled to see Madame the Duchess.”