selves out as if
for ball-going."

"Oh, madame! how came you to revile dress, who were formerly the greatest
coquette and the most frisky and fluttering of all the Princess's women.
At least, that is what is still spoken of you in the hotel, as having
been handed down from time out of mind, by generation to generation, even
unto ours!"

"How! from generation to generation! do you mean to insinuate that I am a
hundred years old, Miss Impertinence?"

"I speak of the generations of waiting-women; for, except you, it is the
utmost if they remain two or three years in the Princess's house, who has
too many tempers for the poor girls!"

"I forbid you to speak thus of my mistress, whose name some people ought
not to pronounce but on their knees."

"However," said Georgette, "if one wished to speak ill of--"

"Do you dare!"

"No longer ago than last night, at half past eleven o'clock--"

"Last night?"

"A four-wheeler," continued Georgette, "stopped at a few paces from the
house. A mysterious personage, wrapped up in a cloak, alighted from it,
and directly tapped, not at the door, but on the glass of the porter's
lodge window; and at one o'clock in the morning, the cab was still
stationed in the street, waiting for the mysterious personage in the
cloak, who, doubtless, during all that time, was, as you say, pronouncing
the name of her Highness the Princess on his knees."

Whether Mrs. Grivois had not been instructed as to a visit made to the
Princess Saint-Dizier by Rodin (for he was the man in the cloak), in the
middle of the night, after he had become certain of the arrival in Paris
of General Simon's daughters; or whether Mrs. Grivois thought it
necessary to appear ignorant of the visit, she replied, shrugging her
shoulders disdainfully: "I know not what you, mean, madame. I have not
come here to listen to your impertinent stuff. Once again I ask you--will
you, or will you not, introduce me to the presence of Miss Adrienne?"

"I repeat, madame, that my mistress sleeps, and that she has forbidden me
to enter her bed-chamber before mid-day."

This conversation took place at some distance from the summer-house, at a
spot from which the peristyle could be seen at the end of a grand avenue,
terminating in trees arranged in form of a V. All at once Mrs. Grivois,
extending her hand in that direction, exclaimed: "Great heavens! is it
possible? what have I seen?"

"What have you seen?" said Georgette, turning round.