How will she
receive me this morning?"

As they reached the works at Marly they perceived that the sky was
brightening. The cocks began to crow in the poultry-yards. A bird
twittered in a park at the left, ceaselessly reiterating a tender
little theme.

"It is time to go back," said Saval.

They returned, and as Servigny entered his room, he saw the horizon
all pink through his open windows.

Then he shut the blinds, drew the thick, heavy curtains, went back
to bed and fell asleep. He dreamed of Yvette all through his
slumber. An odd noise awoke him. He sat on the side of the bed and
listened, but heard nothing further. Then suddenly there was a
crackling against the blinds, like falling hail. He jumped from the
bed, ran to the window, opened it, and saw Yvette standing in the
path and throwing handfuls of gravel at his face. She was clad in
pink, with a wide-brimmed straw hat ornamented with a mousquetaire
plume, and was laughing mischievously.

"Well! Muscade, are you asleep? What could you have been doing all
night to make you wake so late? Have you been seeking adventures, my
poor Muscade?"

He was dazzled by the bright daylight striking him full in the eyes,
still overwhelmed with fatigue, and surprised at the jesting
tranquillity of the young girl.

"I'll be down in a second, Mam'zelle," he answered. "Just time to
splash my face with water, and I will join you."

"Hurry," she cried, "it is ten o'clock, and besides I have a great plan
to unfold to you, a plot we are going to concoct. You know that we
breakfast at eleven."

He found her seated on a bench, with a book in her lap, some novel
or other. She took his arm in a familiar and friendly way, with a
frank and gay manner, as if nothing had happened the night before,
and drew him toward the end of the garden.

"This is my plan," she said. "We will disobey mamma, and you shall
take me presently to La Grenouillere restaurant. I want to see it.
Mamma says that decent women cannot go to the place. Now it is all
the same to me whether persons can go there or cannot. You'll take
me, won't you, Muscade? And we will have a great time--with the
boatmen."

She exhaled a delicious fragrance, although he could not exactly
define just what light and vague odor enveloped her. It was not one
of those heavy perfumes of her mother, but a discreet breath in
which he fancied he could detect a suspicion of iris powder, and
perhaps a suggestion of vervain.

Whence