After coffee had been served on the terrace, Laniboire, with his face coloured like a Redskin, called out, 'Now let's go and work, Mdlle. Moser; I feel quite in the humour. I believe I shall finish my report to-day.' The gentle little lady, who sometimes acted as his secretary, rose with some regret. On a delicious day like this, hazy with the first mists of autumn, a good walk, or perhaps a continuation on the gallery of her talk with the charming and well-mannered M. Paul, would have pleased her better than writing at old M. Laniboire's dictation commendations of devoted hospital-nurses or exemplary attendants. But her father urged her to go, as the great man wanted her. She obeyed and went upstairs behind Laniboire, followed by old Moser, who was going to have his afternoon nap.
Laniboire may have had Pascal's nose, but he had not his manners. When Paul came back from cooling his ambitious hopes by a long walk in the woods, he found the break waiting at the foot of the steps in the great court. The two fine horses were pawing the ground, and Mdlle. Moser was inside, surrounded by boxes and bags, while Moser, looking bewildered, stood on the doorstep, feeling in his pockets and bestowing coins on two or three sneering footmen. Paul went up to the carriage, 'So you are leaving us, Mademoiselle.' She gave him a thin clammy hand, on which she had forgotten to put a glove, and without saying a word, or removing the handkerchief with which she was wiping her eyes under her veil, she bent her head in sign of good-bye. He learnt little more from old Moser, who stammered out in a low voice, as he stood vexed and gloomy, with one foot on the step of the carriage 'It's her doing: she _will_ go. He was rude to her she says, but I can't believe it.' Then with a profound sigh, and knitting the wrinkle in his brow, the deep, red, scar-like wrinkle of the Academic candidate, he added, 'It's a very bad thing for my election.'
Laniboire stayed all the afternoon in his room, and at dinner, as he took his seat opposite Paul, he said, 'Do you know why our friends the Mosers went off so suddenly?'
He assumed an air of great composure for the benefit of the servants, but it was obvious that he was disturbed, worried, and in desperate fear of a scandal. Gradually he regained his serenity and satisfaction, not being able to think ill of life at dinner, and ended by admitting to his young friend that he had perhaps been a little too attentive. 'But it is her father's fault; he pesters me; and even an awarder of good-conduct prizes has his feelings, eh?' He lifted his glass of liqueur with a triumphant flourish, cut short by Paul's remark, 'What will the Duchess say? Of course Mdlle. Moser must have written to her to explain why she left.'