'Wait a moment, mother!' exclaimed Clorinde, 'I'll give you this couch. I'll lie down on the bed. I'm not feeling very well. I've got an insect inside me; and it's begun to bite me again.' There was a general movement. Pozzo and Madame Correur assisted the young woman to her bed. They had to turn down the coverings, and flatten the pillows. Countess Balbi, meantime, lay down on the couch while Flaminio remained standing behind her, black and silent, though glaring ferociously at the visitors. 'You don't mind my lying down, do you?' said Clorinde to the others. 'I feel so much better when I'm lying down. I'm not going to send you away. You must stay where you are.' She was stretched out at full length, her elbow resting on a pillow, while her spreading black blouse looked like a stream of ink upon the white counterpane. Nobody had had any idea of going away. Madame Correur was talking in a whisper to Pozzo about Clorinde's superb figure, while M. Kahn, M. Béjuin and the colonel paid their respects to the Countess, who nodded her head and smiled. Every now and then, without turning round, she would call in a soft voice: 'Flaminio!' The tall footman knew what she meant, and at once raised a cushion or brought a stool, or took a scent bottle from his pocket, retaining, however, in all he did the ferocious air of a brigand in evening dress. All at once Auguste happened to have an accident. After prowling through the three rooms, stopping to examine all the garments that were lying about, he had felt a little bored, and to amuse himself had begun to drink glassful after glassful of sugared-water. Clorinde kept her eye upon him, watching the sugar-basin gradually empty, when suddenly the youth broke his glass, against the side of which he had been pressing his spoon too violently. 'It's all because he puts too much sugar in!' cried Clorinde. 'Dunderhead!' exclaimed the colonel. 'You can't even drink water rationally! One big glassful every morning and every evening, that's the way. There is nothing better. It keeps away all diseases.'