“I happened to be at my window and I saw him. I would have liked to say a word to him, to ask him for a book that he promised to let me have to-day. But he went away so fast! If it wasn’t so early, I would ask him to be kind enough to give it to me now. But that would disturb him perhaps?”
The neighbor seemed to await a reply, but Bertrand kept silent and contented himself with swinging the door back and forth.
“Is Monsieur Dalville still in bed?” inquired the pretty blonde at last, bestowing upon the ex-corporal a glance as tender as her voice was sweet. He was about to reply when the door of the small salon was abruptly thrown open, and disclosed Virginie, who came forward with an air of deliberation, saying:
“Well! is it coming off to-day, Bertrand? Are we playing hide-and-seek?”
When Virginie appeared, Bertrand closed the hall door and sat down, muttering between his teeth:
“Fight it out; it’s none of my business.”
At sight of Mademoiselle Virginie, the neighbor turned a little pinker than she was, and her eyes lost their usual soft expression. Virginie, for her part, scrutinized the neighbor from top to toe, contracting her dark eyebrows, and allowing a scornful smile to play about her lips. Bertrand alone seemed unmoved; and while the two ladies eyed each other from head to foot, he calmly swallowed a glass of wine, to wash down his Roquefort.
“You didn’t tell me, Monsieur Bertrand, that Monsieur Dalville had company,” said the neighbor at last, in a voice which she strove to make as soft as usual, but in which one could detect a note of something resembling anger. “If I had known, I certainly would not have ventured to disturb him.”
“Does madame want to see Auguste, Bertrand?” inquired Virginie carelessly, smiling with a sly expression.
The familiar manner in which the pretty brunette referred to her neighbor seemed to confound Madame Saint-Edmond, who did what she could to conceal her agitation, saying: