"Who's that?" Beauregard asked the maid, pointing to Chamoureau. And she replied with a smile:
"It's a gentleman who came to see madame."
Thereupon Beauregard examined more carefully the individual on the mat, and soon exclaimed:
"Ah! I recognize him; I know him now! He's the Spaniard of the Opéra ball, who kept pulling up his long boots. Exactly! yes! that's just who it is!"
Chamoureau overheard all this; but uncertain how to behave before that person who had been eying him for several moments in a most impertinent way, he decided to leave the mat and beat a retreat. He had already gone downstairs, and was leaving the house, boiling over with wrath, when the gentleman whom he had left on the second floor, and who had descended the stairs behind him, appeared at his side.
Our widower had a very great desire to know who the man was who entered Madame de Sainte-Suzanne's apartment so unceremoniously, and asked for her by her Christian name simply. When he saw him so near, he ventured to bow. Beauregard returned his salutation with an air of mockery, saying:
"Your servant, monsieur!"
"Monsieur, like myself, has just come from Madame de Sainte-Suzanne's, I believe?"
"Yes, monsieur, I have come from Thélénie's. The lady's name is Thélénie."
"It is her Christian name, then?"