At twenty minutes to twelve, Madame Danglars, tired of waiting, returned home.
Women of a certain grade are like prosperous grisettes in one respect, they seldom return home after twelve o’clock. The baroness returned to the hotel with as much caution as Eugénie used in leaving it; she ran lightly upstairs, and with an aching heart entered her apartment, contiguous, as we know, to that of Eugénie.
She was fearful of exciting any remark, and believed firmly in her daughter’s innocence and fidelity to the paternal roof. She listened at Eugénie’s door, and hearing no sound tried to enter, but the bolts were in place.
Madame Danglars then concluded that the young girl had been overcome with the terrible excitement of the evening, and had gone to bed and to sleep. She called the maid and questioned her.
“Mademoiselle Eugénie,” said the maid, “retired to her apartment with Mademoiselle d’Armilly; they then took tea together, after which they desired me to leave, saying that they needed me no longer.”
Since then the maid had been below, and like everyone else she thought the young ladies were in their own room; Madame Danglars, therefore, went to bed without a shadow of suspicion, and began to muse over the recent events.
In proportion as her memory became clearer, the occurrences of the evening were revealed in their true light; what she had taken for confusion was a tumult; what she had regarded as something distressing, was in reality a disgrace.
And then the baroness remembered that she had felt no pity for poor Mercédès, who had been afflicted with as severe a blow through her husband and son.