de Chalusse, and that I have frequently visited the house in the Rue de Courcelles, where he now resides.”
“You!” exclaimed the woman, taking a hasty inventory of M. Fortunat’s toilette.
“Yes, I—on the part of my employer, understand. Each time I’ve been to visit M. de Chalusse’s I’ve seen a young lady whom I took for his daughter there. I was wrong, no doubt, since he isn’t a married man—”
He paused. Astonishment and anger seemed to be almost suffocating his hostess. Without understanding how or why, she felt convinced that she had been duped; and if she had obeyed her first impulse she would have attacked M. Isidore then and there. If she restrained this impulse, if she made an effort to control herself, it was only because she thought she held a better revenge in reserve.
“A young lady in the count’s house!” she said, thoughtfully. “That’s scarcely possible. I’ve never seen her; I’ve never heard her spoken of. How long has she been there?”
“For six or seven months?”
“In that case, I can’t absolutely deny it. It’s two years since I set foot in the count’s house.”
“I fancied this young lady might be the count’s niece Mademoiselle Hermine’s daughter.”
Madame Vantrasson shook her head. “Put that fancy out of your head,” she remarked. “The count said that his sister was dead to him from the evening of her flight.”
“Who CAN this young girl be, then?”
“Bless me! I don’t know. What sort of a looking person is she?”
“Very tall; a brunette.”
“How old is she?”
“Eighteen or nineteen.”
The woman made a rapid calculation on her fingers. “Nine and four are thirteen,” she muttered, “and five are eighteen. Ah, ha!—why not? I must look into this.”
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