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Updated: June 6, 2025
"And you really will not let me accompany you?" asked Maurice. "What will my grandmother say?" "No doubt we shall hear that when we reach the hotel," was the young lady's saucy reply. But they did not hear; for the countess had closed her door, and did not open it again until she summoned Adolphine to undress her. The watchers beside Count Tristan that night were Madeleine and Maurice.
No, she never allowed physicians to approach her; she never had need of them; she had none now, so she affirmed. Bertha was not particularly well fitted to preside in a sick-room, and her maid, Adolphine, was versed in the arts of the toilet alone.
Adolphine was rather a hinderance to the bustling Irish help, for a Parisian lady's-maid knows one especial business, and knows nothing else, however simple; she is an instrument that plays but one tune, and she boasts of her speciality as a virtue. In something more than an hour Adolphine announced that the apartment of M. le Comte was in readiness.
"See the extravagances you force me to commit!" As soon as Monsieur Hochon had, as it were, slivered the bouilli into slices, about as thick as the sole of a dancing-shoe, that dish was replaced by another, containing three pigeons. The wine was of the country, vintage 1811. On a hint from her grandmother, Adolphine had decorated each end of the table with a bunch of flowers.
At eleven o'clock that night, the two Parisians, ensconced in a wicker cabriolet drawn by one horse and ridden by a postilion, quitted Issoudun. Adolphine and Madame Hochon parted from them with tears in their eyes; they alone regretted Joseph and Agathe. "They are gone!" said Francois Hochon, going, with the Rabouilleuse, into Max's bedroom.
Bertha had announced a determination dependent upon Madeleine's, and the suitors of the two cousins had only to submit and hope. The labor of packing Madame de Gramont's wardrobe, as well as that of Bertha, devolved upon Adolphine; she had not quite filled the trunks of her young mistress when she was summoned by the countess.
The presentations took place: first, young Baruch Borniche, a tall youth of twenty-two; then Francois Hochon, twenty-four; and lastly little Adolphine, who blushed and did not know what to do with her arms; she was anxious not to seem to be looking at Joseph Bridau, who in his turn was narrowly observed, though from different points of view, by the two young men and by old Hochon.
Baruch knew very well the influence which his grandfather Hochon exerted over his grandfather and grandmother Borniche: Monsieur Hochon would not hesitate to get their property for Adolphine if his conduct were such as to make them pin their hopes on the grand marriage with which his grandfather had threatened him that morning.
Philippe made his entrance politely, in the midst of a dead silence caused by general curiosity. Madame Hochon shuddered from head to foot as she beheld the author of all Agathe's woes and the murderer of good old Madame Descoings. Adolphine also felt a shock of fear. Baruch and Francois looked at each other in surprise.
This was on the morning of the day preceding the one appointed for their departure. Adolphine was heedless and forgetful to a tantalizing degree.
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