Mademoiselle de Corandeuil threw herself back in her chair and gave way to an access of hilarity in which she rarely indulged.

“Mademoiselle Gobillot reading La Mode!  Mademoiselle Gobillot talking of gowns, shawls, and cashmeres!  Clemence, what do you say to that?  You will see, she will be ordering her bonnets from Herbault!  Ha! ha!  This is what is called the progress of civilization, the age of light!”

“Mademoiselle Gobillot,” said Clemence, fixing a penetrating glance upon the old man, “was not the only one who looked at La Mode.  Was there no other person in the tavern who saw it?”

“Madame,” replied Rousselet, forced from his last refuge, “there were two young men taking their refection, and one of them wore a beard no longer than a goat’s.  Madame will pardon me if I allow myself to use this vulgar expression, but Madame wished to know all.”

“And the other young man?”

“The other had his facial epidermis shaved as close as a lady’s or mine.  He was the one who held the journal while his comrade was smoking outside the door.”

Madame de Bergenheim made no further inquiries, but fell into a profound revery.  With eyes fixed upon the last number of La Mode, she seemed to study the slightest lines of the sketch that had been made thereon, as if she hoped to find a solution to the mystery.  Her irregular breathing, and the bright flush which tinged her usually pale cheeks, would have denoted to an eye-witness one of those tempests of the heart, the physical manifestations of which are like those of a fever.  The pale winter flower dying under the snow had suddenly raised its drooping head and recovered its color; the melancholy against which the young woman had so vainly struggled had disappeared as if by enchantment.  A little bird surmounted by a coronet, the whole rather badly sketched, was the strange talisman that had produced this change.

“They were commercial travellers,” said the old aunt; “they always pretend to know everything.  One of them, doubtless, when reading the well-known name of Monsieur de Bergenheim upon the wrapper, sketched the animal in question.  These gentlemen of industry usually have a rather good education!  But this is giving the affair more importance than it merits.  Leonard Rousselet,” said she, raising her voice as a judge does in court when pronouncing his charge, “you were wrong to let anything addressed to your master leave your hands.  We will excuse you this time, but I warn you to be more careful in future; when you go to Madame Gobillot’s, you may say to Mademoiselle Reine, from me, that if she wishes to read La Mode I shall be delighted to procure a subscriber to one of our journals.  You may retire now.”

Without waiting for this invitation to be repeated, Rousselet backed out of the room like an ambassador leaving the royal presence, escorted by Constance acting as master of ceremonies.  Not having calculated the distance, he had just bumped against the door, when it suddenly opened and a person of extreme vivacity bounded into the middle of the room.