"Accept once more, madame, the assurance of my profound respect and gratitude."
"At last he has gone!" said Thélénie to herself when the door had closed upon her brother. "The wretch!—But he will come again before long! It will be useless for me to change my residence, he will always succeed in finding me. What can I do to throw him off my track?—Luckily no one knows that he is my brother!"
"No one but me!" muttered Héloïse, who, with her ear glued to the door, had listened to what was said in the bedroom.
XVIII
A SPEAKING HEART
Honorine and Agathe returned from the notary's well content and very happy. The pretty house at Chelles had become their property. They were at liberty to make plans for the future without fear of being unable to realize them.
"Now that the house is ours," said Madame Dalmont to her young friend, "we must go there again to-morrow, to inspect it more carefully, from top to bottom. I will examine the furniture and see what part of it I can keep and what I must bring from Paris."
"Yes, my dear."
"Then we will come back here; I will sell all I do not need to keep, and we will pack up, leave Paris for good, and settle down in our own home. Oh! how lovely it is to be able to speak of home! I can understand already the love of the soil."
"Yes; we can arrange and disarrange our furniture without fear that we shall be found fault with.—By the way, my dear, I fancy that, but for that young man, Monsieur Edmond Didier, the transaction wouldn't have been concluded so quickly."
"I agree with you; especially as that Monsieur Chamoureau, the agent, doesn't seem to listen to anything one says to him. I am very glad to have done with him. However, his charges are not high; he refused to accept any fee, saying: 'We will let it go in with something else.' But as I have no desire to employ him for anything else, I paid him.—Besides, one doesn't buy a house every day."