“Oh! yes, I was wrong!”
Arnoux, gratified with his triumph, pressed the matter even further.
“I’d even make a bet that when he left us, a little while ago, he went to see her again. He’s with her at this moment, you may be sure! He’s finishing the evening with her!”
Madame Arnoux had pulled down her hat very low.
“Why, you’re shaking all over!”
“That’s because I feel cold!” was her reply.
As soon as her father was asleep, Louise made her way into Catherine’s room, and, catching her by the shoulders, shook her.
“Get up—quick! as quick as ever you can! and go and fetch a cab for me!”
Catherine replied that there was not one to be had at such an hour.
“Will you come with me yourself there, then?”
“Where, might I ask?”
“To Frederick’s house!”
“Impossible! What do you want to go there for?”
It was in order to have a talk with him. She could not wait. She must see him immediately.
“Just think of what you’re about to do! To present yourself this way at a house in the middle of the night! Besides, he’s asleep by this time!”
“I’ll wake him up!”
“But this is not a proper thing for a young girl to do!”
“I am not a young girl—I’m his wife! I love him! Come—put on your shawl!”
Catherine, standing at the side of the bed, was trying to make up her mind how to act. She said at last:
“No! I won’t go!”
“Well, stay behind then! I’ll go there by myself!”
Louise glided like an adder towards the staircase. Catherine rushed after her, and came up with her on the footpath outside the house. Her remonstrances were fruitless; and she followed the girl, fastening her undervest as she hurried along in the rear. The walk appeared to her exceedingly tedious. She complained that her legs were getting weak from age.
“I’ll go on after you—faith, I haven’t the same thing to drive me on that you have!”
Then she grew softened.
“Poor soul! You haven’t anyone now but your Catau, don’t you see?”
From time to time scruples took hold of her mind.
“Ah, this is a nice thing you’re making me do! Suppose your father happened to wake and miss you! Lord God, let us hope no misfortune will happen!”
In front of the Théâtre des Variétés, a patrol of National Guards stopped them.
Louise immediately explained that she was going with her servant to look for a doctor in the Rue Rumfort. The patrol allowed them to pass on.
At the corner of the Madeleine they came across a second patrol, and, Louise having given the same explanation, one of the National Guards asked in return:
“Is it for a nine months’ ailment, ducky?”
“Oh, damn it!” exclaimed the captain, “no blackguardisms in the ranks! Pass on, ladies!”
In spite of the captain’s orders, they still kept cracking jokes.
“I wish you much joy!”
“My respects to the doctor!”
“Mind the wolf!”
“They like laughing,” Catherine remarked in a loud tone. “That’s the way it is to be young.”
At length they reached Frederick’s abode.
Louise gave the bell a vigorous pull, which she repeated several times. The door opened a little, and, in answer to her inquiry, the porter said:
“No!”
“But he must be in bed!”
“I tell you he’s not. Why, for nearly three months he has not slept at home!”
And the little pane of the lodge fell down sharply, like the blade of a guillotine.
They remained in the darkness under the archway.
An angry voice cried out to them:
“Be off!”
The door was again opened; they went away.
Louise had to sit down on a boundary-stone; and clasping her face with her hands, she wept copious tears welling up from her full heart. The day was breaking, and carts were making their way into the city.
Catherine led her back home, holding her up, kissing her, and offering her every sort of consolation that she could extract from her own experience. She need not give herself so much trouble about a lover. If this one failed her, she could find others.
XVI
Unpleasant News from Rosanette
When Rosanette’s enthusiasm for the Gardes Mobiles had calmed down, she became more charming than ever, and Frederick insensibly glided into the habit of living with her.
The best portion of the day was the morning on the terrace. In a light cambric dress, and with her stockingless feet thrust into slippers, she kept moving about him—went and cleaned her canaries’ cage, gave her goldfishes some water, and with a fire-shovel did a little amateur gardening in the box filled with clay, from which arose a trellis of nasturtiums, giving an attractive look to the wall. Then, resting, with their elbows on the balcony, they stood side by side, gazing at the vehicles and the passersby; and they warmed themselves in the sunlight, and made plans for spending the evening. He absented himself only for two hours at most, and, after that, they would go to some theatre, where they would get seats in front of the stage; and Rosanette, with a large bouquet of flowers in her hand, would listen to the instruments, while Frederick, leaning close to her ear, would tell her comic or amatory stories. At other times they took an open carriage to drive to the Bois de Boulogne. They kept walking about slowly until the middle of the night. At last they made their way home through the Arc de Triomphe and the grand avenue, inhaling the breeze, with the stars above their heads, and with all the gas-lamps ranged in the background of the perspective like a double string of luminous pearls.
Frederick always waited for her when they were going out together. She was a very long time fastening the two ribbons of her bonnet; and she smiled at herself in the mirror set in the wardrobe; then she would draw her arm over his, and, making him look at himself in the glass beside
