"Your name, madame?" he had asked brusquely. A rude fellow of the most advanced republican type, he had not even risen out of deference to the ladies when they entered. He was there, he would have told you, to perform the duties of his office, not to give dancing-lessons.
"Plougastel," he repeated after her, without title, as if it had been the name of a butcher or baker. He took down a heavy volume from a shelf on his right, opened it and turned the pages. It was a sort of directory of his section. Presently he found what he sought. "Comte de Plougastel, Hôtel Plougastel, Rue du Paradis. Is that it?"
"That is correct, monsieur," she answered, with what civility she could muster before the fellow's affronting rudeness.
There was a long moment of silence, during which he studied certain pencilled entries against the name. The sections had been working in the last few weeks much more systematically than was generally suspected.
"Your husband is with you, madame?" he asked curtly, his eyes still conning that page.
"M. le Comte is not with me," she answered, stressing the title.
"Not with you?" He looked up suddenly, and directed upon her a glance in which suspicion seemed to blend with derision. "Where is he?"
"He is not in Paris, monsieur.
"Ah! Is he at Coblenz, do you think?"
Madame felt herself turning cold. There was something ominous in all this. To what end had the sections informed themselves so thoroughly of the comings and goings of their inhabitants? What was preparing? She had a sense of being trapped, of being taken in a net that had been cast unseen.
"I do not know, monsieur," she said, her voice unsteady.
"Of course not." He seemed to sneer. "No matter. And you wish to leave Paris also? Where do you desire to go?"
"To Meudon."
"Your business there?"
