"I can't go out at eleven o'clock at night," replied her sister.

"My carriage is here."

"What are you two plotting together?" said du Tillet, pushing open the
door of the boudoir.

He came in showing a torpid face lighted now by a speciously amiable
expression. The carpets had dulled his steps and the preoccupation of
the two sisters had kept them from noticing the noise of his
carriage-wheels on entering the court-yard. The countess, in whom the
habits of social life and the freedom in which her husband had left
her had developed both wit and shrewdness,--qualities repressed in her
sister by marital despotism, which simply continued that of their
mother,--saw that Eugenie's terror was on the point of betraying them,
and she evaded that danger by a frank answer.

"I thought my sister richer than she is," she replied, looking
straight at her brother-in-law. "Women are sometimes embarrassed for
money, and do not wish to tell their husbands, like Josephine with
Napoleon. I came here to ask Eugenie to do me a service."

"She can easily do that, madame. Eugenie is very rich," replied du
Tillet, with concealed sarcasm.

"Is she?" replied the countess, smiling bitterly.

"How much do you want?" asked du Tillet, who was not sorry to get his
sister-in-law into his meshes.