Juliette gasped:
"Alas!—I have no passport! At least, Madame Tessier has both ours...."
"Ah, bah!" said Adelaide. "We will borrow Mariette's.... She can remain here at pasture, and amuse herself with the waiters!..." She burst out laughing at Juliette's look of astonishment, and tapped her under the chin, telling her to go to her room, pack a small hand-bag with necessary articles, change into a dark, plain walking-dress, and rejoin her as soon as might be. She showed a small watch, its back thickly crusted with emeralds, saying:
"Hurry!... You have barely a quarter of an hour."
Then she opened the door, sped her capture with a beaming smile, beckoned Mariette, and this strange colloquy took place between Circe and her tirewoman:
"Did the old woman come nosing upstairs after the little Mademoiselle joined me?"
Mariette replied:
"She did, Madame, but I had locked both Mademoiselle's doors—that leading into the old lady's room, and the one that opens on the corridor,—and put the keys in my pocket. Here they are!"
She held them up, her sallow features expressive with the expectation of a reward earned by intelligence. Said Adelaide, impatiently tapping her handsome foot:
"And then?... And then?..."