At bedtime council was held, one of those discussions which take place in the passages of old country-houses where the bachelors linger, candle in hand, for mysterious conversations.

Monsieur Gravier was now informed of the object in view during this entertaining evening which had brought Madame de la Baudraye’s innocence to light.

“But, after all,” said Lousteau, “our hostess’ serenity may indicate deep depravity instead of the most child-like innocence.  The Public Prosecutor looks to me quite capable of suggesting that little La Baudraye should be put in pickle——­”

“He is not to return till to-morrow; who knows what may happen in the course of the night?” said Gatien.

“We will know!” cried Monsieur Gravier.

In the life of a country house a number of practical jokes are considered admissible, some of them odiously treacherous.  Monsieur Gravier, who had seen so much of the world, proposed setting seals on the door of Madame de la Baudraye and of the Public Prosecutor.  The ducks that denounced the poet Ibycus are as nothing in comparison with the single hair that these country spies fasten across the opening of a door by means of two little flattened pills of wax, fixed so high up, or so low down, that the trick is never suspected.  If the gallant comes out of his own door and opens the other, the broken hair tells the tale.

When everybody was supposed to be asleep, the doctor, the journalist, the receiver of taxes, and Gatien came barefoot, like robbers, and silently fastened up the two doors, agreeing to come again at five in the morning to examine the state of the fastenings.  Imagine their astonishment and Gatien’s delight when all four, candle in hand, and with hardly any clothes on, came to look at the hairs, and found them in perfect preservation on both doors.

“Is it the same wax?” asked Monsieur Gravier.

“Are they the same hairs?” asked Lousteau.

“Yes,” replied Gatien.

“This quite alters the matter!” cried Lousteau.  “You have been beating the bush for a will-o’-the-wisp.”

Monsieur Gravier and Gatien exchanged questioning glances which were meant to convey, “Is there not something offensive to us in that speech?  Ought we to laugh or to be angry?”

“If Dinah is virtuous,” said the journalist in a whisper to Bianchon, “she is worth an effort on my part to pluck the fruit of her first love.”

The idea of carrying by storm a fortress that had for nine years stood out against the besiegers of Sancerre smiled on Lousteau.

With this notion in his head, he was the first to go down and into the garden, hoping to meet his hostess.  And this chance fell out all the more easily because Madame de la Baudraye on her part wished to converse with her critic.  Half such chances are planned.

“You were out shooting yesterday, monsieur,” said Madame de la Baudraye.  “This morning I am rather puzzled as to how to find you any new amusement; unless you would like to come to La Baudraye, where you may study more of our provincial life than you can see here, for you have made but one mouthful of my absurdities.  However, the saying about the handsomest girl in the world is not less true of the poor provincial woman!”