“What quay?” a lady asked of her neighbor.  “They spoke of baths—­”

“Pray go on,” said Madame de la Baudraye.

“At any rate, it is not by a councillor,” said Bianchon.

“It may be by Madame Hadot,” replied Lousteau.

“What has Madame Hadot of La Charite to do with it?” the Presidente asked of her son.

“This Madame Hadot, my dear friend,” the hostess answered, “was an authoress, who lived at the time of the Consulate.”

“What, did women write in the Emperor’s time?” asked Madame Popinot-Chandier.

“What of Madame de Genlis and Madame de Stael?” cried the Public Prosecutor, piqued on Dinah’s account by this remark.

“To be sure!”

“I beg you to go on,” said Madame de la Baudraye to Lousteau.

Lousteau went on saying:  “Page 218.

  218 OLYMPIA

and gave a shriek of despair when he had vainly sought any trace of a secret spring.  It was impossible to ignore the horrible truth.  The door, cleverly constructed to serve the vengeful purposes of the Duchess, could not be opened from within.  Rinaldo laid his cheek against the wall in various spots; nowhere could he feel the warmer air from the passage.  He had hoped he might find a crack that would show him where there was an opening in the wall, but nothing, nothing!  The whole seemed to be of one block of marble.

  Then he gave a hollow roar like
  that of a hyaena——­

“Well, we fancied that the cry of the hyaena was a recent invention of our own!” said Lousteau, “and here it was already known to the literature of the Empire.  It is even introduced with a certain skill in natural history, as we see in the word hollow.”

“Make no more comments, monsieur,” said Madame de la Baudraye.

“There, you see!” cried Bianchon.  “Interest, the romantic demon, has you by the collar, as he had me a while ago.”

“Read on,” cried de Clagny, “I understand.”

“What a coxcomb!” said the Presiding Judge in a whisper to his neighbor the Sous-prefet.

“He wants to please Madame de la Baudraye,” replied the new Sous-prefet.

“Well, then I will read straight on,” said Lousteau solemnly.

Everybody listened in dead silence.

         OR ROMAN REVENGE 219

A deep groan answered Rinaldo’s cry, but in his alarm he took it for an echo, so weak and hollow was the sound.  It could not proceed from any human breast.

“Santa Maria!” said the voice.

“If I stir from this spot I shall never find it again,” thought Ri- naldo, when he had recovered his usual presence of mind.  “If I knock, I shall be discovered.  What am I to do?”

  “Who is here?” asked the voice.

  “Hallo!” cried the brigand; “do
  the toads here talk?”

“I am the Duke of Bracciano.  Whoever you may be, if you are not a follower of the Duchess’, in the name of all the saints, come towards me.”

  220 OLYMPIA