"Monsieur is still asleep; he isn’t in the habit of attending to business so early."
"Go tell him, my dear, that it’s his client Jules-Raoul Robineau, who has just inherited twenty-five thousand francs a year from his uncle Gratien; that will wake him up at once."
"Oh! I don’t think so, monsieur. Besides, monsieur and madame haven’t been married very long, and I don’t know whether I can go into their room like this."
"Do you want me to go?"
"Oh, no! wait a moment, monsieur, while I go and see."
The servant decided to deliver the message entrusted to her, and Robineau meanwhile paced the floor of an enormous dining-room.
"When the notary knows that it’s I," he thought, "I am sure that he’ll get up immediately."
But the maid soon returned and said with a mocking air:
"Monsieur swore because I woke him, and sent me about my business; he says you must come again."
"Did you give him my name?"