“Certainly, or rather twice a day--morning and evening--at his toilette.” Chupin expressed his feelings with a grimace and an exclamation of mocking wonder. “Ah, well! he must have a clean skin,” he said. His listeners laughed heartily; and the concierge, after exchanging a significant glance with the valet, said sotto voce, “Zounds! it’s his business to be a handsome fellow!” The mystery was solved. While Chupin changed the contents of the jardinieres, and remained upstairs in the intervals between the nine or ten journeys he made to the porte-cochere for more flowers, he listened attentively to the conversation between the concierge and the valet, and heard snatches of sentences that enlightened him wonderfully. Moreover, whenever a question arose as to placing a plant in one place rather than another, the valet stated as a conclusive argument that the baroness liked it in such or such a place, or that she would be better pleased with this or that arrangement, or that he must comply with the instructions she had given him. Chupin was therefore obliged to conclude that the flowers had been sent here by a baroness who possessed certain rights in the establishment. But who was she? He was manoeuvering cleverly in the hope of ascertaining this point, when a carriage was heard driving into the courtyard below. “Monsieur must have returned!” exclaimed the valet, darting to the window. Chupin also ran to look out, and saw a very elegant blue-lined brougham, drawn by a superb horse, but he did not perceive the viscount. In point of fact, M. de Coralth was already climbing the stairs, four at a time, and, a moment later, he entered the room, angrily exclaiming, “Florent, what does this mean? Why have you left all the doors open?” Florent was the servant in the red waistcoat. He slightly shrugged his shoulders like a servant who knows too many of his master’s secrets to have anything to fear, and in the calmest possible tone replied, “If the doors are open, it is only because the baroness has just sent some flowers. On Sunday, too, what a funny idea! And I have been treating Father Moulinet and this worthy fellow” (pointing to Chupin) “to a glass of wine, to acknowledge their kindness in assisting me.” Fearing recognition, Chupin hid his face as much as possible; but M. de Coralth did not pay the slightest attention to him. There was a dark frown on his handsome, usually smiling countenance, and his hair was in great disorder. Evidently enough, something had greatly annoyed him. “I am going out again,” he remarked to his valet, “but first of all I must write two letters which you must deliver immediately.” He passed into the drawing-room as he spoke, and Florent scarcely waited till the door was closed before uttering an oath. “May the devil take him!” he exclaimed. “Here he sets me on the go again. It is five o’clock, too, and I have an appointment in half an hour.”