“Monsieur Poterne, as we are passing through this street, suppose we stop and bid our good friend, Marquis Chérubin de Grandvilain good-morning? this is his house. You know that he is constantly asking us to breakfast with him.”
Poterne enveloped himself closely in his box-coat and replied:
“It’s too early as yet; no one is up in the marquis’s house.”
These words were not lost on Louise, who started at the name of Chérubin. She approached Daréna and said to him timidly:
“Excuse me, monsieur, but as you are a friend of Monsieur de Grandvilain, who lives in this house, perhaps you know Monsieur de Monfréville also?”
At that name Poterne made a wry face; but Daréna replied as amiably as possible:
“Yes, my lovely maiden, I know Monfréville; indeed, I am intimately acquainted with him. Have you business with him?”
“I have a letter for him, but I do not know his address, and I was told that I could learn it at Monsieur Chérubin’s; but, although I know Monsieur Chérubin, I dared not go into his house.”
“Ah! so you know my friend Chérubin, mademoiselle? In that case he must have spoken to me about you, for I was his most intimate confidant.”
“Oh, no, monsieur!” replied Louise sadly, “he would never have spoken to you about me, for he has forgotten me; he doesn’t want to see us again. I am Louise, Monsieur Chérubin’s friend in childhood.”