This note he found at his lodgings when he returned home at night, and on the following morning he went in his despair direct to Mount Street, on his way to the Adelphi.  It was not yet ten o’clock when he was shown into Madam Gordeloup’s presence, and as regarded her dress, he did not find her to be quite prepared for morning visitors.  But he might well be indifferent on that matter, as the lady seemed to disregard the circumstance altogether.  On her head she wore what he took to be a nightcap, though I will not absolutely undertake to say that she had slept in that very head-dress.  There were frills to it, and a certain attempt at prettinesses had been made; but then the attempt had been made so long ago, and the frills were so ignorant of starch and all frillish propensities, that it hardly could pretend to decency.  A great white wrapper she also wore, which might not have been objectionable had it not been so long worn that it looked like a university college surplice at the end of a long vacation.  Her slippers had all the ease which age could give them, and above the slippers, neatness, to say the least of it, did not predominate.  But Sophie herself seemed to be quite at her ease in spite of these deficiencies, and received our hero with an eager, pointed welcome, which I can hardly describe as affectionate, and which Harry did not at all understand.

“I have to apologize for troubling you,” he began.

“Trouble, what trouble?  Bah!  You give me no trouble.  It is you have the trouble to come here.  You come early and I have not got my crinoline.  If you are contented, so am I.”  Then she smiled, and sat herself down suddenly, letting herself almost fall into her special corner in the sofa.  “Take a chair, Mr. Harry; then we can talk more comfortable.”

“I want especially to see your brother.  Can you give me his address?”

“What?  Edouard—­certainly; Travellers’ Club.”

“But he is never there.”

“He sends every day for his letters.  You want to see him.  Why?”

Harry was at once confounded, having no answer.  “A little private business,” he said.

“Ah; a little private business.  You do not owe him a little money, I am afraid, or you would not want to see him.  Ha, ha!  You write to him, and he will see you.  There; there is paper and pen and ink.  He shall get your letter this day.”

Harry, nothing suspicious, did as he was bid, and wrote a note in which he simply told the count he was specially desirous of seeing him.

“I will go to you anywhere,” said Harry, “if you will name a place”

We, knowing Madam Gordeloup’s habits, may feel little doubt but that she thought it her duty to become acquainted with the contents of the note before she sent it out of her house, but we may also know that she learned very little from it.

“It shall go almost immediately,” said Sophie, when the envelope was closed.