secretly to visit Alfred, I should have had to try back a great
many times before I could have screwed up my courage to venture in. But
then, as for visiting your great dons in this kind of way, I never could
have done such a thing. No, never! I am sure there is nobody under the
face of heaven can say I ever give them the least freedom,--I should
think not, indeed, while my poor dear old darling of a husband is left."

"No doubt,--no doubt, Madame Pipelet; but about the young person you
were describing in the blue _fiacre_?"

"Oh! mind, I don't know whether she was young or old; I could not even
catch a glimpse of the tip of her nose; all I can say is she went as she
came, and that is all about it. As for Alfred and me, we were better
pleased than if we had found ten francs."

"Why so?"

"By enjoying the rage and confusion of the commandant when he found
himself a third time disappointed; but, instead of going and telling him
at once that his 'madame' had been and gone, we allowed him to fume and
fret for a whole hour. Then I went softly up-stairs with only my list
slippers on. I reached his door, which I found half shut; as I pushed
against it, it creaked; the staircase is as black as night, and the
entrance to the apartment quite as obscure. Scarcely had I crept into
the room, when the commandant caught me in his arms, saying, in a
languishing voice, 'My dearest angel! what makes you so late?'"

Spite of the serious nature of the thoughts crowding upon his mind,
Rodolph could not restrain a smile as he surveyed the grotesque periwig
and hideously wrinkled, carbuncled visage of the heroine of this comic
scene.

Madame Pipelet, however, resumed her narration with a mirthful chuckle
that increased her ugliness:

"That was a go, wasn't it? But stop a bit. Well, I did not make the
least reply, but, almost keeping in my breath, I waited to see what
would be the end of this strange reception. For a minute or two the
commandant kept hugging me up, then, all of a sudden, the brute pushed
me away, exclaiming with as much disgust as though he had touched a
toad, 'Who the devil are you?' 'Me, commandant,--the porteress,--Madame
Pipelet; and, as such, I will thank you to keep your hands off my waist,
and not to call me your angel, and scold me for being late. Suppose
Alfred had heard you, a pretty business we should have made of it!'
'What the deuce brings you here?' cried he. 'Merely to let you know the
lady in the hackn