'To-day?'
'On the instant.'
'But where will they take me?'
'How should I know?'
'You do not know where they will take me?'
'Not I,'—and Dumoulin still spoke the truth—'the coachman has his orders.'
'Do you know all this is very funny, Ninny Moulin?'
'I believe you. If it were not funny, where would be the pleasure?'
'You are right.'
'Then you accept the offer? That is well. I am delighted both for you and myself.'
'For yourself?'
'Yes; because, in accepting, you render me a great service.'
'You? How so?'
'It matters little, as long as I feel obliged to you.'
'True.'
'Come, then; let us set out!'
'Bah! after all, they cannot eat me,' said Rose-Pompon, resolutely.
With a skip and a jump, she went to fetch a rose-colored cap, and, going up to a broken looking-glass, placed the cap very much cocked on one side on her bands of light hair. This left uncovered her snowy neck, with the silky roots of the hair behind, and gave to her pretty face a very mischievous, not to say licentious expression.
'My cloak!' said she to Ninny Moulin, who seemed to be relieved from a considerable amount of uneasiness, since she had accepted his offer.
'Fie! a cloak will not do,' answered her companion, feeling once more in his pocket and drawing out a fine Cashmere shawl, which he threw over Rose-Pompon's shoulders.
'A Cashmere!' cried the young girl, trembling with pleasure and joyous surprise. Then she added, with an air of heroism: 'It is settled! I will run the gauntlet.' And with a light step she descended the stairs, followed by Ninny Moulin.
The worthy greengrocer was at her post. 'Good-morning, mademoiselle; you are early to-day,' said she to the young girl.
'Yes, Mother Arsene; there is my key.'
'Thank you, mademoiselle.'
'Oh! now I think of it,' said Rose Pompon, suddenly, in a whisper, as she turned towards Ninny Moulin, and withdrew further from the portress, 'what is to became of Philemon?'
'Philemon?'
'If he should arrive—'
'Oh! the devil!' said Ninny Moulin, scratching his ear.
'Yes; if Philemon should arrive, what will they say to him? for I may be a long time absent.'
'Three or four months, I suppose.'
'Not more?'
'I should think not.'
'Oh! very good!' said Rose-Pompon. Then, turning towards the greengrocer, she said to her, after a moment's reflection: 'Mother Arsene, if Philemon should come home, you will tell him I have gone out—on business.'
'Yes, mademoiselle.'
'And that he must not forget to feed my pigeons, which are in his study.'
'Yes, mademoiselle.'
'Good-bye, Mother Arsene.'
'Good-bye, mademoiselle.' And Rose-Pompon entered the carriage in triumph, along with Ninny Moulin.
'The devil take me if I know what is to come of all this,' said Jacques Dumoulin to himself, as the carriage drove rapidly down the Rue Clovis. 'I have repaired my error—and now I laugh at the rest.'
CHAPTER VII. ANOTHER SECRET.
The following scene took place a few days after the abduction of Rose Pompon by Ninny Moulin. Mdlle. de Cardoville was seated in a dreamy mood, in her cabinet, which was hung with green silk, and furnished with an ebony library, ornamented with large bronze caryatides. By some significant signs, one could perceive that Mdlle. de Cardoville had sought in the fine airs some relief from sad and serious thoughts. Near an open piano, was a harp, placed before a music-stand. A little further, on a table covered with boxes of oil and water-color, were several brilliant sketches. Most of them represented Asiatic scenes, lighted by the fires of an oriental sun. Faithful to her fancy of dressing herself at home in a picturesque style, Mademoiselle de Cardoville resembled that day one of those proud portraits of Velasquez, with stern and noble aspect. Her gown was of black moire, with wide swelling petticoat, long waist, and sleeve slashed with rose-colored satin, fastened together with jet bugles. A very stiff, Spanish ruff reached almost to her chin, and was secured round her neck by a broad rose-colored ribbon. This frill, slightly heaving, sloped down as far as the graceful swell of the rose-colored stomacher, laced with strings of jet beads, and terminating in a point at the waist. It is impossible to express how well this black garment, with its ample and shining folds, relieved with rose-color and brilliant jet, skin, harmonized with the shining whiteness of Adrienne's and the golden flood of her beautiful hair, whose long, silky ringlets descended to her bosom.
The young lady was in a half-recumbent posture, with her elbow resting on a couch covered with green silk. The back of this piece of furniture, which was pretty high towards the fireplace, sloped down insensibly towards the foot. A sort of light, semicircular trellis-work, in gilded bronze, raised about five feet from the ground, covered with flowering plants (the admirable passiflores quadrangulatoe, planted in a deep ebony box, from the centre of which rose the trellis-work), surrounded this couch with a sort of screen of foliage enamelled with large flowers, green without, purple within, and as brilliant as those flowers of porcelain, which we receive from Saxony. A sweet, faint perfume, like a faint mixture of jasmine with violet, rose from the cup of these admirable passiflores. Strange enough, a large quantity of new books (Adrienne having bought them since the last two or three days) and quite fresh-cut, were scattered around her on the couch, and on a little table; whilst other larger volumes, amongst which were several atlases full of engravings, were piled on the sumptuous fur, which formed the carpet beneath the divan. Stranger still, these books, though of different forms, and by different authors, alt treated of the same subject. The posture of Adrienne revealed a sort of melancholy dejection. Her cheeks were pale; a light blue circle surrounded her large, black eyes, now half-closed, and gave to them an expression of profound grief. Many causes contributed to this sorrow—amongst others, the disappearance of Mother Bunch. Without absolutely believing the perfidious insinuations of Rodin, who gave her to understand that, in the fear of being unmasked by him, the hunchback had not dared to remain in the house, Adrienne felt a cruel sinking of the heart, when she thought how this young girl, in whom she had had so much confidence, had fled from her almost sisterly hospitality, without even uttering a word of gratitude; for care had been taken not to show her the few lines written by the poor needlewoman to her benefactress, just before her departure.
She had only been told of the note of five hundred francs found on her desk; and this last inexplicable circumstance had contributed to awaken cruel suspicions in the breast of Mdlle. de Cardoville. She already felt the fatal effects of that mistrust of everything and everybody, which Rodin had recommended to her; and this sentiment of suspicion and reserve had the more tendency to become powerful, that, for the first time in her life, Mdlle. de Cardoville, until then a stranger to all deception, had a secret to conceal—a secret, which was equally her happiness, her shame, and her torment. Half-recumbent on her divan, pensive and depressed, Adrienne pursued, with a mind often absent, one of her newly purchased books. Suddenly, she uttered an exclamation of surprise; the hand which held the book trembled like a leaf, and from that moment she appeared to read with passionate attention and devouring curiosity. Soon, her eyes sparkled with enthusiasm, her smile assumed ineffable sweetness, and she seemed at once proud, happy, delighted—but, as she turned over the last page, her countenance expressed disappointment and chagrin. Then she recommenced this reading, which had occasioned her such sweet emotion, and this time she read with the most deliberate slowness, going over each page twice, and spelling, as it were, every line, every word. From time to time, she paused, and in a pensive mood, with her forehead leaning on her fair hand, she seemed to reflect, in a deep reverie, on the passages she had read with such tender and religious love. Arriving at a passage which so affected her, that a tear started in her eye, she suddenly turned the volume, to see
