“Bah! Am I a fool, Master Dauban, that you would fill my ears with lies about a good man? You say truly, the Baron de Proballe is in no favour of mine, but at least I know him to be an honest, fair-speaking, straight-dealing gentleman.” The man laughed unctuously, as from the enjoyable vantage point of superior knowledge. “I know what I know,” he said cunningly. “You know no ill of him, and I will hear none. He is Mademoiselle Gabrielle’s uncle and protecting friend, and a good man.” Lucette’s tone was full of reproachful indignation. “Yes, he is miladi’s uncle, and a good man.” He laughed again with the same unctuous suggestion of intense enjoyment. “And all you people here in Malincourt are so sharp and clever--so sharp and clever--as clever as he is good.” “We are sharp enough to know an honest man when we see him, and clever enough not to listen to the tales of a maligner, Master Dauban,” retorted Lucette with an appearance of great warmth. Her anger so delighted the man that he threw himself into the seat near her and laughed till his sides shook. “What fools women are!” “They are a match for a man’s brilliant wits any time,” cried Lucette very sharply. “Go away and leave me in peace.” “A match for us! ho, ho! a match,” he laughed. Presently he grew serious, leaned forward and said in a lone tone: “You love miladi; you think my master a good man, eh? What would you give to know what I know?” “I wouldn’t know all the wickedness you know for a duke’s ransom,” declared Lucette sharply. “I should have to hang myself if I did, in sheer self-shame.” “Pouf! women are worse than men; and you’re no better than the rest, I’d be sworn. But you’re such a pretty spitfire and say such waspish things; that’s what I like in you. But for all your sharp tongue you are as blind as a three-day kitten, and can’t tell milk from vinegar when it’s under your very nose. You can’t even smell it;” and he laughed again. “Better a blind kitten than a wideawake rat with a keen scent for garbage, Master Dauban,” she retorted with a shrug of her shoulders. “Rats can find other things than garbage, Mistress Lucette. Shall I ask you a question?” He paused, and then with an accent of great cunning, asked--“Why do you think my good master is so interested in this marriage of miladi with M. de Cobalt?” Lucette laughed airily. “That’s easy to answer, of a surety. Because he is the brother of Mistress Gabrielle’s late mother, and it is a family affair.” “There mewed the blind kitten,” he cried with another of his triumphant laughs. “And there squeaked a rat!” “Does a good man like to see his niece, a pure woman, mated with a scoundrel? Does he work and scheme and strive and plot to force it on? Answer me that, kitten.” “Does even a rat seek to bite the hand that feeds it? Answer me that, rat.”