'At the worst,' she said, 'I carried the POULETS! But I can assure you, duchess, this gentleman should be able to tell us a very fine story, if he would.' The duchess and all the other ladies clapping their hands at this, and crying out that the story must and should be told, I found myself in a prodigious quandary; and one wherein my wits derived as little assistance as possible from the bright eyes and saucy looks which environed me.

Moreover, the commotion attracting other listeners, I found my position, while I tried to extricate myself, growing each moment worse, so that I began to fear that as I had little imagination I should perforce have to tell the truth.

The mere thought of this threw me into a cold perspiration, lest I should let slip something of consequence, and prove myself unworthy of the trust which M.de Rosny had reposed in me.
At the moment when, despairing of extricating myself, I was stooping over Madame de Bruhl begging her to assist me, I heard, amid the babel of laughter and raillery which surrounded me--certain of the courtiers having already formed hands in a circle and sworn I should not depart without satisfying the ladies--a voice which struck a chord in my memory.

I turned to see who the speaker was, and encountered no other than M.de Bruhl himself; who, with a flushed and angry face, was listening to the explanation which a friend was pouring into his ear.
Standing at the moment with my knee on Madame de Bruhl's stool, and remembering very well the meeting on the stairs, I conceived in a flash that the man was jealous; but whether he had yet heard my name, or had any clew to link me with the person who had rescued Mademoiselle de la Vire from his clutches, I could not tell.

Nevertheless his presence led my thoughts into a new channel.