“Your servant!”
Gerville closed the door of Raymond’s room and went into another, passing ours as he did so.
“Well, mademoiselle,” I said to Agathe, “choose; to which of these gentlemen will you give the preference?”
“Oh! I have a delicious idea!”
“Some crazy scheme, I’ll be bound, for you think of no other kind.”
“This will be unique. Help me, my dear Eugène, I beg you.”
Without another word to me, Agathe began to stride up and down the room; she pushed the chairs about, threw some of them down, and, amid the uproar, cried out from time to time:
“Don’t be angry with me, my friend! I assure you that you are mistaken. I give you my word that I haven’t seen Raymond; that I don’t care for him! Ask Dorsan; he invited me to dinner, because he was expecting a lady.”
I began to understand Agathe’s plan; she proposed to make Raymond think that Gerville was with us. To second her, I also made noise enough for two, and attempted now and then to imitate Gerville’s voice. We stopped at last, tired out by our comedy; Agathe made me a sign which I understood; I left the room, the door of which she locked behind me, and stole on tiptoe into Raymond’s, where I found him shivering and half dead with terror in front of a beefsteak with potatoes. I locked the door before approaching him, and put a finger to my lips; we had the aspect of two conspirators. Raymond spoke so low at this time that I could hardly hear him.
“He’s in there,” I said, pointing to the next room.