“Ah! so you have a lady’s maid who doesn’t want to serve at table? You are perfectly right to compel her to do it. Servants are amazing nowadays! If we listened to them they would do nothing at all, and we should pay them high wages! I am curious to see your lady’s maid.”
Louise’s arrival put an end to these remarks. The girl was much embarrassed when she received the order sent through Comtois; she hesitated to follow him at first, but Comtois said:
“You must come, mademoiselle; monsieur says so, and when he gives an order, you must obey.”
So Louise decided to go with the valet. The thought that she was going to vex her mistress by obeying her master’s commands caused her very great distress; so that she entered the room with downcast eyes and with her cheeks flushing hotly. But she was all the prettier so, and most of the guests seemed impressed by her beauty.
“Upon my word,” said Monsieur Trichet, “this girl would have done very wrong not to show herself! I have seen few servants so pretty.—What is that you are saying, Monsieur Dernange? Oh! I hear you: you said: ‘A Greek profile.’—True, very like it. But Greek or not, it is very distinguished for the profile of a lady’s maid.”
The two young men did not make their reflections aloud, like Monsieur Trichet, but they seemed not to weary of gazing at Louise, and they were delighted to have their plates changed by her.
The tall, pretentious lady cast a disdainful glance at Louise and muttered:
“I cannot understand how anyone can call a servant pretty!”
“That girl is fascinating!” cried the other lady; “and she has such a modest air! Everything about her speaks in her favor.”
“Oho!” said Monsieur Trichet, “it isn’t safe to trust to such airs; they’re often very deceptive. I know what I am talking about; I have had two hundred maids, and they have all stolen from me.”