Madame swung to the housekeeper.
“How long is it since monsieur left?”
“Ten minutes, maybe; hardly more.” Conceiving these great ladies to be friends of her invincible master’s latest victim, the good woman preserved a decently stolid exterior.
Madame wrung her hands. “Ten minutes! Oh!” It was almost a moan. “Which way did he go?”
“The assignation is for nine o’clock in the Bois de Boulogne,” Aline informed her. “Could we follow? Could we prevail if we did?”
“Ah, my God! The question is should we come in time? At nine o’clock! And it wants but little more than a quarter of an hour. Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” Madame clasped and unclasped her hands in anguish. “Do you know, at least, where in the Bois they are to meet?”
“No—only that it is in the Bois.”
“In the Bois!” Madame was flung into a frenzy. “The Bois is nearly half as large as Paris.” But she swept breathlessly on, “Come, Aline: get in, get in!”
Then to her coachman. “To the Bois de Boulogne by way of the Cours la Reine,” she commanded, “as fast as you can drive. There are ten pistoles for you if we are in time. Whip up, man!”
She thrust Aline into the carriage, and sprang after her with the energy of a girl. The heavy vehicle—too heavy by far for this race with time—was moving before she had taken her seat. Rocking and lurching it went, earning the maledictions of more than one pedestrian whom it narrowly avoided crushing against a wall or trampling underfoot.