Touquet approached the unknown, looked at her and saw that this really was the young girl whom the marquis had depicted; for her part, the damsel looked attentively at the barber, and seemed to wait for him to address her in words.
"Are you not the Signora Julia?" said the barber in a bass voice, approaching the young girl.
"And you the barber Touquet?" answered she, lifting to him her animated black eyes.
The barber was surprised at hearing himself named by a person to whom he believed himself unknown, but, after having considered the young girl anew, he resumed,—
"Since you know me, you should also know that the Marquis de Villebelle has sent me to you."
"The marquis is rather ungallant," answered Julia, "in not coming himself to a first meeting."
"These great noblemen are not the masters of their time; besides, the marquis has no desire to converse with you about his love on this bridge."
"Preferring, no doubt, his little house of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine?"
"It seems to me, signora, that you are very well acquainted with everything that concerns the marquis; after that I have nothing more to tell you, except that a carriage is waiting a hundred feet from here."
"Very well, let us go."