“Do your utmost, monsieur.”
At two o’clock, Thélénie was arrayed in a lovely gown, made in the best possible taste; the carriage was ready and waiting in the courtyard. Madame came down and looked about for her husband.
“Where is monsieur, pray?”
“We do not know, madame.”
“What on earth does this mean? I told him to be ready at two o’clock, and it’s after two. Probably he hasn’t finished dressing. Go and tell him to hurry. I am waiting.”
The maid went up to monsieur’s apartment. In a moment she returned and said:
“Monsieur is not in his room, madame, but he must be dressed, for I saw on the chairs the clothes he had on this morning.”
“He is dressed, and yet he is not here! Really Monsieur de Belleville is becoming insufferable; always having to be hunted for! Can it be that he is a prisoner again in—you know, the place where he was yesterday? Let someone visit all the toilet-rooms in the house; then, if monsieur is there again, we shall find him.”
The servants executed their mistress’s orders; meanwhile Thélénie stepped into the calèche, murmuring impatiently:
“Mon Dieu! what an idiot I have married! but after all, he is just what I needed.”