CHAPTER VI.
THE MARQUISE INTERCEDES.
_1st October._ Paul, there is something going on here that does not please me.

I would like to have your advice; send it as soon as possible.
On Thursday morning, after finishing my letter, I went down to give it to the messenger, who leaves quite early; then, as it only wanted a few minutes of the breakfast-hour, I walked into the drawing-room, which was still empty.

I was quietly looking over a review by the fireside, when the door was suddenly flung open; I heard the crushing and rustling of a silk dress too broad to get easily through an aperture three feet wide, and I saw the Little Countess appear: she had spent the night at the chateau.
If you remember the unfortunate conversation in which I had become entangled, the previous evening, and which Madame de Palme had overheard from beginning to end, you will readily understand that this lady was the last person in the world with whom it might prove pleasant to find myself alone that morning.
I rose and I addressed to her a deep courtsey; she replied with a nod, which, though slight, was still more than I deserved from her.

The first steps she took in the parlor after she had seen me were stamped with hesitation and a sort of wavering; it was like the action of a partridge lightly hit on the wing and somewhat stunned by the shot.

Would she go to the piano, to the window, to the right or to the left, or opposite?
It was clear that she did not know herself; but indecision is not the weak point of her disposition; she soon made up her mind, and crossing the immense drawing room with very firm step, she came in the direction of the chimney, that is, toward my immediate domain.
Standing in front of my arm-chair with my review in my hand, I was awaiting the event with an apparent gravity that concealed but imperfectly, I fear, a rather powerful inward anxiety.