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They looked for you on a complaint of M. de la Gueritude. I conceived a most horrible idea of your disorders. But having been informed by letter that it was a question only of some peccadillo I had no other thought but to see you again. Many a time I consulted the landlord of the Little Bacchus on the means to hush up your affair.
I have him for my salvation only and if I would give a rival to M. de la Gueritude it would be " "Would be?" "Don't ask me, M. Jacques; you're an ungrateful man, for you know that I always singled you out, but you do not care about me." "Quite the contrary, Mam'selle Catherine. I smarted under your mockery. You sneered at my beardless chin. Many a time you have told me that I am but a ninny."
I have been looking for you, Tournebroche, and, not to withhold anything from you, had quite made up my mind to depart without you when, happily, I discovered you in company with the Capuchin under yonder elm-tree. We could not delay any longer, as M. de la Gueritude has given sharp orders to look everywhere for us. He has a long arm, having lent money to the king."
We urged him, all of us my tutor, Catherine and I to keep quiet; we entreated him, hung on his neck. It was useless. He got hold of a candelabra and descended the stairs. Trembling we followed him. He unlocked the door. M. de la Gueritude was there, exactly as M. d'Anquetil had described him, with his periwig, between two flunkeys bearing torches.
And if you want a proof of it, let me say, that when, last year, on a certain day, I was in direful distress and penury, I went, on the advice of Friar Ange, to burn a wax candle in the Church of the Capuchins, and on the following I met M. de la Gueritude at the promenade, who gave me this house, with all the furniture it contains, the cellar full of wine, some of which we enjoy to-night, and sufficient money to live honestly."
It is from that day that I knew how much a woman is embellished and adorned by a kiss lovingly pressed on her mouth. Mine had made roses of the sweetest hue bloom on Catherine's cheeks and strewn into the flowery blue of her eyes drops of diamantine dew. "You are a baby," she said, readjusting her hood. "Go! you cannot remain a moment longer. M. de la Gueritude will be here at once.
"It is true," said Catherine, "yonder idiot has drenched my chemise, and I am catching cold. But listen. Perhaps M. d'Anquetil could hide in the top room, and I would make the abbe my uncle and Jacques my brother." "No good at all," said M. d'Anquetil. "I'll go myself and kindly ask M. de la Gueritude to have supper with us."
M. d'Anquetil saluted with the utmost correctness and said: "Accord us the favour to come in, sir. You'll find some persons as amiable as singular. Tournebroche, to whom Mam'selle Catherine throws kisses from the window, and a priest who believes in God." Wherewith he bowed respectfully. M. de la Gueritude was of the dry sort, very tall, and little inclined to the enjoyment of a joke.
M. d'Anquetil, whose military qualities were aroused by the knocker's onslaught, after reconnoitring, exclaimed: "Ah! Ah! Ah! Do you know who knocks? It is M. de la Gueritude with his full-bottomed periwig and two big flunkeys carrying lighted torches." "That's not possible," said Catherine, "at this very moment he is in bed with his old woman." "Then it is his ghost," said M. d'Anquetil.
"And the ghost also wears his periwig, which is so ridiculous that any self-respecting spectre would refuse to copy it." "Do you speak the truth, and not jeer at me?" asked Catherine." Is it really M. de la Gueritude?" "It's himself, Catherine, if I may believe my own eyes/ "Then I am lost!" exclaimed the poor girl. "Women are indeed unhappy! They are never left in peace. What will become of me?
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