Entragues asked:
"Are you sure that she returned?"
"She did return. After Madame's departure, yesterday, I put everything in order, I even smoothed the bed in which she had thrown herself for a moment after dinner. It is Madame's habit when she goes to a ball. And this morning the bed was disordered. Yet Madame is not heavy, and usually, when she sleeps, one can hardly see the mark of her body."
"Well," said Entragues, giving his address and a few coins to the maid, "if you learn anything, come and tell me. I am as uneasy as you are, Azélia. Come to-morrow morning, at any rate, perhaps I shall have news."
He departed. In the street, his calm grew agitated.
"I am deceived," he cried, "scandalously deceived!"
He opened his umbrella so violently that the silk snapped; then he smashed it against the edge of the sidewalk, threw it into the gutter, and, under the heavy and frigid fog, reached the end of the boulevard Saint-Germain, near the quai Saint-Bernard.
There, in a blind alley, amid huts, stood a little furnished house, patronized by Russian students and having the name of the Hôtel de Moscow.
"Monsieur Moscowitch."
"Monsieur Moscowitch left this morning for Nice. Does Monsieur wish his address? Grand Hôtel des Deux-Mondes."