Féré had never met him. Mme. de Cambremer, on learning this, felt a keen satisfaction, and the smile of the chemist who is about to bring into contact for the first time two particularly important bodies hovered over her face. The door opened, and Mme. de Cambremer almost fainted when she saw Morel enter the room alone. Like a private secretary charged with apologies for his Minister, like a morganatic wife who expresses the Prince’s regret that he is unwell (so Mme. de Clinchamp used to apologise for the Duc d’Aumale), Morel said in the airiest of tones: “The Baron can’t come. He is not feeling very well, at least I think that is why, I haven’t seen him this week,” he added, these last words completing the despair of Mme. de Cambremer, who had told M. and Mme. Féré that Morel saw M.