Without the slightest hesitation he bowed, and at once stepped back into the corridor with me.
“Ah, madame, you should have been on the floor, and not in the gallery. This ball promises to be amusing, and you are running away before it has fairly begun.” Seeing I was too embarrassed to reply, he continued with perfect savoir-faire a conversation made up of nothings, leading me down the long corridor away from curious eyes as he did so, until I was able to say, with decency:
“Monsieur, a thousand thanks for your timely attention, but I must return. I have been over-long already.”
At this moment M. de Sarennes approached from the opposite direction, and bowing, as if he had met me for the first time that evening, said, after saluting the Marquis, “My mother grows anxious at your stay, madame, and has deputed me to be your escort.”
But he counted too far on my cowardice, and had no knowledge of how far a woman will trust an honourable man. The Marquis, never doubting his good faith, had already fallen back a step, when I turned to him and said, quietly,
“Monsieur, it is quite impossible for me to accept this gentleman's offer, but I shall be grateful if you will provide me with a different escort.”
“There is not the slightest difficulty in that. M. de Sarennes, I must ask you to remain in attendance here, as I will not have another opportunity of seeing you before you start for Montreal in the morning. I will join you within presently;” and he dismissed the angry man with a formal little bow, as if unconscious of anything unusual. Beckoning to a servant, he ordered him to find M. Joannès, and bid him meet us at the entrance.
“I am heartily glad, madame,” he said, when we were alone, “that you had the confidence to appeal to me. I shall take means to keep M. de Sarennes so busily employed that he will have no further opportunity of annoying you.”
“I am very grateful, monsieur, and would never have troubled you could I have seen any other way of escape.”
“'Tutto è bene che riesce bene,' which is the extent of my Italian, madame; but here is M. Joannès. M. Joannès,” he continued, to the merry little officer, “you have already had the pleasure of meeting Mme. de St. Just; you now can render her a service.”