"Fichtre! pray be careful! I didn't say Chameau; you must not confound me with that beast of the desert with two humps. For I flatter myself that I have never had one—although I am a widower."
"Monsieur is quite capable of it; but still a man sometimes wears one without knowing it."
"Do you think so, mademoiselle? If that had happened to me, my wife would have told me; she had no secrets from me!"[I]
"Oh! that makes a difference!"
"Understand, mademoiselle—Chamoureau, not Chameau."
"I will remember, monsieur."
And the maid, laughing in the gentleman's face, because he seemed to her excessively foolish, was in the act of closing the door, when another person appeared and hastily opened it again; then, elbowing aside Chamoureau, who was still standing on the mat, he entered the reception-room with the air of a master, and said abruptly:
"Is Thélénie here? I want to speak to her."
The agent raised his eyes to look at the person who had pushed him aside so unceremoniously. He scrutinized him with the greatest attention when he heard him ask for "Thélénie" simply, and not Madame de Sainte-Suzanne. Such familiarity was most offensive to Chamoureau, and when he saw that the man who indulged in it was fashionably dressed, he was more incensed than ever.
We will not draw the portrait of the newcomer, as we have already seen him at the Opéra, in the box of the lady whom he now asked to see. It was Monsieur Beauregard who had applied to the lady's maid, and she, suddenly become respectful, because he spoke to her in an arrogant tone, hastened to reply: