Good! At all events, she gave me ground for hope. I liked her frankness exceedingly.
"In the second place, I must go; yes, I'm in a great hurry. I came here on my way to do an errand; but it wasn't far that I had to go, and my mistress will say: 'There's that Rosette idling again!'"
"Ah! so it seems that you do that sometimes?"
"Yes, sometimes; I don't deny it. I like to stroll along and look in the shop windows."
"Sit down a moment."
She did so, and said, after looking about the room:
"Monsieur—is it really true that it's you?"
"That it's I?—why—— What do you mean?"
"Why, you know, yesterday, when I saw your name on the ticket, I shouted for joy, and I said: 'What! that gentleman who spoke to me is the one who writes the plays I like so much and go to see so often!'—Oh! I tell you, I was pleased then, and that's why I came right here last night: I remembered your address, and I asked if it was really you that lived in this house; and the concierge said yes, and I told him I'd come again to-morrow, at noon. Well! does that make you angry? you don't say anything."
"No; it doesn't make me angry. But I was thinking."