The day passed; and, whether it was intentional, or whether it was that he was otherwise employed, Bathilde saw him no more, and his window remained closed. When Buvat came home as usual, at ten minutes after four, he found the young girl so much preoccupied that, although his perspicacity was not great in such matters, he asked her three or four times if anything was wrong; each time she answered by one of those smiles which supplied Buvat with enough to do in looking at her; and it followed that, in spite of these repeated questions, Bathilde kept her secret.
After dinner M. Chaulieu's servant entered--he came to ask Buvat to spend the evening with his master. The Abbe Chaulieu was one of Buvat's best patrons, and often came to his house, for he had taken a great liking for Bathilde. The poor abbe became blind, but not so entirely as not to be able to recognize a pretty face; though it is true that he saw it across a cloud. The abbe had told Bathilde, in his sexagenarian gallantry, that his only consolation was that it is thus that one sees the angels.
Bathilde thanked the good abbe from the bottom of her heart for thus getting her an evening's solitude. She knew that when Buvat went to the Abbe Chaulieu he ordinarily stayed some time; she hoped, then, that he would stop late as usual. Poor Buvat went out, without imagining that for the first time she desired his absence.
Buvat was a lounger, as every bourgeois of Paris ought to be. From one end to the other of the Palais Royal, he stared at the shops, stopping for the thousandth time before the things which generally drew his attention. On leaving the colonnade, he heard singing, and saw a group of men and women, who were listening to the songs; he joined them, and listened too. At the moment of the collection he went away, not from a bad heart, nor that he would have wished to refuse the admirable musician the reward which was his due, but that by an old habit, of which time had proved the advantage, he always came out without money, so that by whatever he was tempted he was sure to overcome the temptation. This evening he was much tempted to drop a sou into the singer's bowl, but as he had not a sou in his pocket, he was obliged to go away. He made his way then, as we have seen, toward the Barriere des Sergents, passed up the Rue du Coq, crossed the Pont-Neuf, returned along the quay so far as the Rue Mazarine; it was in the Rue Mazarine that the Abbe Chaulieu lived.