"What an idiot I am not to understand! That child has a hundred times more tact than I have! She doesn't want the concierge to see me go up to her room at midnight; for that would inevitably spread a report through the whole house that I had passed the night there! Yes, of course that's it; she's quite right; she has pointed out to me clearly enough what I have to do: go up to my room and pretend to go to bed; then, when everybody's asleep, and the gas is all out, go downstairs and steal up to her room, where I'll wager that I shall find the door unlocked as usual. There is my path all marked out for me: now I must follow it."
Monsieur de Mardeille went upstairs, purposely making a great noise. He entered his room, slammed the door, ordered Frontin to undress him, and then dismissed him with strict injunctions to go to bed at once. Half an hour passed, the gas was extinguished, there was no light to be seen in any of the neighbors' rooms, not even Georgette's.
"That girl thinks of everything!" thought Monsieur de Mardeille. "She is prudence personified: she has put out her light. Very good! Darkness makes one more daring. I must make haste; the propitious moment is here!"
And the gentleman stole from his room on tiptoe, enveloped in an ample robe de chambre, and with his jaunty cap on his head. He went downstairs, taking every precaution not to make any noise; he passed the concierge's lodge, where there was no light; darkness reigned on all sides, and as our seducer was feeling his way across the courtyard he ran against the pump; but that told him where he was; the door leading to the narrow stairway was close at hand; he found it and went upstairs, muttering:
"Here I am, at last!"
He soon stood in front of Georgette's door. He felt about on all sides; the key was not in the lock, and the door was securely fastened.
"She didn't think of leaving the key outside!" thought Monsieur de Mardeille; "that was an oversight. Perhaps it was from modesty, so that she might not seem to be expecting me. However, I must let her know that I am here. I'll knock softly; she can't be asleep."
And he gave two very soft taps, then a louder one, muttering:
"She doesn't hear! Can she have gone to sleep already? It's very strange; there's not a sound anywhere in the house, and she ought to hear! Damn the odds! I must wake her up! If other people hear, it will be her own fault."
And he knocked louder, then louder still, and shouted through the keyhole: