"Three covers," said Frédérique to a servant who was in the reception room. "And a good fire, for there's no satisfaction in eating when one is cold. Is there a fire in the salon?"
"No, madame; but there is one in your room."
"Very well! let us go to my room, then, messieurs; you will allow me to receive you in my bedroom, will you not? At one o'clock in the morning, we may snap our fingers at etiquette."
"Ah, madame!" I said, bowing low; "it is a great favor, for which we thank you."
"Ah, montame!" said the baron, in his turn, with a still lower bow; "id vould pe fery bretty in any room mit you."
Without listening to our thanks, Madame Dauberny had already left the room before us. A lady's-maid carried a light. We arrived in the bed chamber of the lady whom Monsieur Archibald called a gaillarde. It was a delicious spot, furniture and draperies being in the most perfect taste; an alabaster globe hanging from the ceiling cast a soft light upon everything. Quantities of flowers, in lovely Chinese vases, filled the air with an intoxicating perfume. It was the retreat of a petite-maîtresse; there was nothing there to suggest a gaillarde. I expected to find foils, pipes, and statuettes; I found nothing but flowers, and inhaled nothing but perfumes.
We were hardly ushered into her room when the charming Frédérique left us, saying:
"Messieurs, I crave your permission to go and make myself comfortable."
I was left alone with the Prussian baron; I examined him more closely, while he gazed amorously at the bed which stood at one end of the room. Herr von Brunzbrack seemed to be about forty years of age; he was tall and well built and powerful—a man of the type of those from whom Frederick the Great recruited a regiment of grenadiers. His blond coloring was a little too pronounced, although his hair, cut in military fashion, was less red than his moustaches; he had great blue eyes on a level with his face, which were always wide open, and which had not an intelligent expression; but, on the other hand, there was frankness in them, and a kindliness that soon gave place to wrath if anybody seemed inclined to make sport of him. Taken as a whole, Herr von Brunzbrack had what is conventionally called a "good face." He laughed very readily, opening a cavernous mouth; but he resumed his seriousness so suddenly that one was surprised to have heard him laugh.
As he spoke French with difficulty, he deemed it advisable to accompany his words with a pantomime which he considered most expressive, I doubt not, but which was often more grotesque than intelligible.