"Bring me the suit of clothes you will see hanging on a nail in the wall".
She stared at him, knowing his weakness of body better than he knew it himself.
"What for, m'sieu?"
"What for? What are clothes for, idiot of a woman! To put on, to wear. I shall habit myself as a gentleman. Faith—it is time, too!"
"But, m'sieu——!"
"Bring me that suit, I say."
Madame hesitated, because she had removed the suit in question a week before to an old trunk in an empty room—she was not very clear which one—and it would take her some minutes to find it.
"If m'sieu will get back into his bed——"
"I will do nothing so foolish. I was thinking of getting up. I am up and should be holding a levee— How do you do, my Lord Marquis?—pray enter. M. le Chevalier de Repentigny; open there for my friend, the Intendant! Gentlemen, I greet you. You perceive me at my toilet—but these lackeys are too slow! Fetch me my clothes, I say! Ah—misery! I cannot stand! I cannot—cannot even sit! Help me to bed, you woman there—help me, quick!"
And madame, instead of running for the suit of Court clothes, managed to lay Henry Clairville down again before he fainted. However, the next day he was slightly stronger and the next and the next, so that on the fifth day he was nearly as well as ever, and again demanding the suit, she went to the room upstairs and hunted for it. Its colour was a faded claret, and lacings of dingy silver appeared on the front and round the stiffened skirt that stood out from the waist—a kind of cut to make even a meagre man look well among his fellows; a three-cornered hat went with it, and into this relic of strenuous days, madame soon assisted her charge.