Monsieur Magloire, who lighted it at the candle and held it smoking under his wife’s nose.
The remedy was a sovereign one, as the Baron had said; the effect of it was instantaneous; Madame Magloire sneezed.
“Ah!” cried the bailiff delightedly, “now she is coming to! my wife! my dear wife! my dear little wife!”
Madame Magloire gave a sigh.
“My lord! my lord!” cried the bailiff, “she is saved! saved!”
Madame Magloire opened her eyes, looked first at the Bailiff and then at the Baron, with a bewildered gaze, and then finally fixing them on the Bailiff:
“Magloire! dear Magloire!” she said, “is it really you? Oh! how glad I am to see you again after the bad dream I have had!”
“Well!” muttered Thibault, “she is a brazen-faced hussy, if you like! if I do not get all that I want from the ladies I run after, they, at least, afford me some valuable object lessons by the way!”
“Alas! my beautiful Suzanne,” said the Bailiff, “it is no bad dream you have had, but, as it seems, a hideous reality.”
“Ah! I remember now,” responded Madame Magloire. Then, as if noticing for the first time that the lord of Vez was there:
“Ah! my lord,” she continued, “I hope you have repeated nothing to my husband of all those foolish things I told you?”
“And why not, dear lady?” asked the Baron.
“Because an honest woman knows how to protect herself, and has no need to keep on telling her husband a lot of nonsense like that.”