His agitation increased when, after a long wait, a woman appeared by a side door, from precisely the direction in which he had kept a constant lookout. She was dressed in black with a thick veil over her face, and she held a brown morocco leather bag in her hand, containing, as I subsequently discovered, a wondrous morning-gown and blue satin slippers. The woman and the young man advanced towards each other looking to right and left, but never in front of them. They came up to one another, shook hands, and stood several minutes without speaking a word, trembling and gasping, a prey to one of those intense emotions for which I would give in exchange a hundred years of a philosopher’s life.
“Leon,” said the young woman, when she had summoned up courage to speak (I had forgotten to mention that she was young and pretty)—“Leon, what a happy thought! I should never have recognized you with those blue spectacles.”
“What a happy thought!” said Leon. “I should never have known you under that black veil.”
“What a happy thought!” she repeated. “Let us be quick to take our seats; suppose the train were to start without us!...” (and she squeezed his arm tightly). “No one will suspect us. I am now with Clara and her husband, on the way to their country house, where, tomorrow, I must say good-bye to her; ... and,” she added, laughing and lowering her head, “she left an hour ago; and tomorrow, ... after passing the last evening with her, ... (again she pressed his arm), tomorrow in the morning, she will leave me at the station, where I shall meet Ursula, whom I sent on ahead to my aunt’s.... Oh! I have arranged everything. Let us take our tickets.... They cannot possibly guess who we are. Oh! suppose they ask our names at the inn? I have forgotten them already....”
“Monsieur and Madame Duru.”
“Oh no! Not Duru. There was a shoemaker called that at the pension.”
“Dumont, then?”
“Daumont.”
“Very well. But no one will ask us.”
The bell rang, the door of the waiting-room opened, and the carefully veiled young woman rushed into a carriage with her youthful companion. The bell rang a second time, and the door of their compartment was closed.