logical conclusion. As a man was now climbing in at the window, a man could very well have been climbing down from it; and if a man did climb down from it—unless, of course, Madam Magloire’s acquaintances were many in number, and she had a great variety of tastes—if a man did climb down from it, in all probability, it was the same man who, at this moment was climbing in.
But whoever this nocturnal visitor might be, Madame Suzanne held out her hand to the intruder, who took a heavy jump into the room, which made the floor tremble and set all the furniture shaking. The apparition was certainly not a spirit, but a corporeal body, and moreover one that came under the category of heavy bodies.
“Oh! take care, my lord,” Madame Suzanne’s voice was heard to say, “heavily as my husband sleeps, if you make such a noise as that, you will wake him up.”
“By the devil and his horns! my fair friend,” replied the stranger. “I cannot alight like a bird!” and Thibault recognised the voice as that of the man with whom he had had the altercation a night or two before. “Although while I was waiting under your window for the happy moment, my heart was so sick with longing that I felt as if wings must grow ere long, to bear me up into this dear wished-for little room.”
“And I too, my lord,” replied Madame Magloire with a simper, “I too was troubled to leave you outside to freeze in the cold wind, but the guest who was with us this evening only left us half an hour ago.”
“And what have you been doing, my dear one, during this last half hour?”
“I was obliged to help Monsieur Magloire, my lord, and to make sure that he would not come and interrupt us.”
“You were right as you always are, my heart’s love.”