“Oh! how kind you are, monsieur!” replied Louise, timidly putting her arm through Daréna’s. “Are you really going to take the trouble to take me to Monsieur de Monfréville’s?”
“I will take you wherever you choose—to the king if you have anything to say to him.—Poterne, why don’t you take mademoiselle’s bundle?”
“You are too kind, monsieur, but it does not trouble me.”
“No matter; I will not allow my friend Chérubin’s foster-sister to carry a bundle when she has my arm.”
Poterne had already taken the bundle from Louise’s hands; and she, confused by so much courtesy, walked on with her arm through Daréna’s, while Poterne followed, feeling the bundle to find out what there was in it.
As they walked along, the girl told Daréna how she had left Gagny to enter Madame de Noirmont’s service, and her grief because Chérubin had forgotten her; in fact, she omitted nothing save the visit Madame de Noirmont had paid to her during the night.
“And what do you propose to do at Monfréville’s?” asked Daréna, fixing his eyes on Louise’s lovely ones.
“I am going to give him a letter which was given to me for him.”
“To induce him to reconcile you and your dear friend Chérubin, no doubt?”
“Oh! no, monsieur! it’s about something that he alone knows about.”