An hour passed. Nothing happened, and André goaded by a feverish curiosity which he could not satisfy, and feeling only that he had been baffled again, planned how to leave. Pausing, to be sure that the two servants were ready as before to follow him, he flung himself round the corner into the darkness and up the first alley and down the next, reckless of stabs in the back, until he was able to crouch in the first convenient doorway. He had thrown his spies off, that was something, and just as he was wondering what to do next a cloaked figure brushed past him. The Chevalier de St. Amant, as he lived! He grabbed at the cloak in vicious rage. The Chevalier at least should not escape him.
“Don’t be so rude, Vicomte,” laughed a woman’s voice. “I won’t vanish up the chimney.”
André, in sheer astonishment, staggered against the door, glaring all the time into the darkness. “You will be wise to follow me,” she continued, “and in silence.”
In two minutes the pair were standing in a small and empty back room of the tavern André had just left. The woman threw back her hood, revealing the trim figure and saucy face of the impudent flower girl, who was no other than his long-lost acquaintance, the crystal-gazer.
“You will present,” she said mockingly, “my humble duties to Madame la Marquise de Pompadour——”
André had recovered his bewilderment. “What is the meaning of that?” he demanded, brusquely, thrusting the slip of paper into her hands.
“I don’t know,” she retorted coolly, and then tore the slip into a dozen pieces, “and I do not care to know.”
André was so startled by the studied insolence of the act that for a few minutes he could neither speak nor move. When he did, it was to put his back to the door very significantly.
“One question, Madame,” he demanded. “You are aware that George Onslow is in Paris, that he spoke to you, gave you that paper?”
“Certainly. Mr. Onslow mistook me for some one else. I have just convinced him of his mistake.” She was positively smiling.