Part 58 (1/2)
Sheto avert this horror But what could she do? To follow him to the Bois and intervene there would be to make a scandal for no purpose The conventions of conduct were all against her, offering a barrier that was not to be overstepped Was there no one could help her?
Standing there, half-frenzied by her helplessness, she caught again a sound of vehicles and hooves on the cobbles of the street below
A carriage was approaching It dreith a clatter before the fencing-acade? Passionately she snatched at that straw of hope Knocking, loud and urgent, fell upon the door She heard Andre-Louis' housekeeper, her wooden shoes clanking upon the stairs, hurrying down to open
She sped to the door of the anteroo it wide stood breathlessly to listen But the voice that floated up to her was not the voice she so desperately hoped to hear It was a woent tones for M Andre-Louis--a voice at first vaguely faastel
Excited, she ran to the head of the narrow staircase in tiitation:
”He has gone already! Oh, but how long since? Which way did he take?”
It was enough to inforastel's errand eneral distress and confusion of her mind, her mental vision focussed entirely on the one vital point, she found in this no ard conceived by Mastel for Andre-Louis seemed to her then a sufficient explanation
Without pausing to consider, she ran down that steep staircase, calling:
”Madame! Madame!”
The portly, comely housekeeper drew aside, and the two ladies faced each other on that threshold Mard, a na from her eyes
”Aline! You here!” she exclai aside all minor considerations, ”Were you also too late?” she asked
”No, madame I saw him I implored him But he would not listen”
”Oh, this is horrible!” Mastel shuddered as she spoke ”I heard of it only half an hour ago, and I came at once, to prevent it at all costs”
The toly, at each other In the sunshi+ne-flooded street one or two shabby idlers were pausing to eye the handsoreat ladies on the doorstep of the fencing-academy From across the way came the raucous voice of an itinerant bellows-mender raised in the cry of his trade:
”A racco to the housekeeper
”How long is it since monsieur left?”
”Ten reat ladies to be friends of her invincible ood wo her hands ”Ten o?”
”The assignation is for nine o'clock in the Bois de Boulogne,” Aline informed her ”Could we follow? Could we prevail if we did?”
”Ah, my God! The question is should we come in time? At nine o'clock!
And it wants but little more than a quarter of an hour Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” Madauish ”Do you know, at least, where in the Bois they are to meet?”
”No--only that it is in the Bois”