Just as Baron Hulot had seen his wife’s cousin to the door of her house and said, ‘Goodbye, Cousin,’ a small, slim, pretty, very smartly dressed young woman, exuding an expensive perfume, passed between the carriage and the door, to enter the same house.
Without any kind of premeditation, this lady exchanged a look with the Baron, simply to see the tenant’s cousin. But the libertine experienced the keen impression felt momentarily by all Parisians when they encounter a pretty woman who fulfils what entomologists call their desiderata. Slowly and deliberately he put on one of his gloves before getting back into his carriage, so as to give himself an excuse for allowing his eyes to follow the young woman, whose dress was swaying agreeably over something other than those frightful, deceptive, crinoline petticoats.
‘There’s an attractive little woman whom I should be very glad to make happy, for she would make me happy,’ he said to himself.
When the unknown woman had reached the landing of the staircase which served the main body of the building fronting the street, she looked at the carriage entrance out of the corner of her eye, without actually turning round, and saw the Baron rooted to the spot with admiration and consumed by desire and curiosity. Such an event is like a flower which all Parisian women delight to smell when they find one in their path. Some women who are devoted to their duties, virtuous and pretty, come home quite out of humour if they have not collected their little nosegay in the course of their outing.
The young woman went quickly up the stairs. Soon a window of the second-floor flat was opened and she appeared, but in the company of a gentleman whose bald head and not at all angry look showed that he was her husband.
‘How knowing and clever such young women are,’ said the Baron to himself. ‘That’s her way of showing me where she lives. She’s a little too quick off the mark, especially for this district. I must be careful.’ He looked up when he had got into the milord, and then the husband and wife quickly withdrew, as if the Baron’s face had the effect on them of the mythological Medusa’s head.*
‘They seem to know me,’ thought the Baron. ‘In that case, everything would be explained.’
In fact, when the carriage had gone back up the Rue du Musée, he leaned out to have another look at the unknown lady and found that she had returned to the window. Ashamed at being caught gazing at the hood which sheltered her admirer, the young woman retreated hastily.
‘I’ll find out from Nanny-Goat who she is,’ the Baron said to himself.
The sight of the Councillor of State had produced a deep impression on the couple, as we shall see.
‘But it’s Baron Hulot. My office is in his department!’ exclaimed the husband as he left the balcony.
‘Well, Marneffe, the old maid on the third floor at the end of the courtyard, who lives with that young man, must be his cousin! Isn’t it odd that we should find that out only today, and by chance?’
‘Mademoiselle Fischer live with a young man!’ repeated the clerk. ‘That’s porter’s gossip. We mustn’t speak so lightly of the cousin of a Councillor of State who’s the big boss at the ministry. Anyway, come and have dinner. I’ve been waiting for you since four o’clock.’