“If they aren’t sharp and ingenious, the cunning jades!” thought the Baron. “She does that to show me where she lives. But this is getting rather warm, especially for this part of Paris. We must mind what we are at.” As he got into the _milord_, he looked up, and the lady and the husband hastily vanished, as though the Baron’s face had affected them like the mythological head of Medusa. “It would seem that they know me,” thought the Baron. “That would account for everything.” As the carriage went up the Rue du Musee, he leaned forward to see the lady again, and in fact she was again at the window. Ashamed of being caught gazing at the hood under which her admirer was sitting, the unknown started back at once. “Nanny shall tell me who it is,” said the Baron to himself. The sight of the Government official had, as will be seen, made a deep impression on this couple. “Why, it is Baron Hulot, the chief of the department to which my office belongs!” exclaimed the husband as he left the window. “Well, Marneffe, the old maid on the third floor at the back of the courtyard, who lives with that young man, is his cousin. Is it not odd that we should never have known that till to-day, and now find it out by chance?” “Mademoiselle Fischer living with a young man?” repeated the husband. “That is porter’s gossip; do not speak so lightly of the cousin of a Councillor of State who can blow hot and cold in the office as he pleases. Now, come to dinner; I have been waiting for you since four o’clock.” Pretty--very pretty--Madame Marneffe, the natural daughter of Comte Montcornet, one of Napoleon’s most famous officers, had, on the strength of a marriage portion of twenty thousand francs, found a husband in an inferior official at the War Office. Through the interest of the famous lieutenant-general--made marshal of France six months before his death--this quill-driver had risen to unhoped-for dignity as head-clerk of his office; but just as he was to be promoted to be deputy-chief, the marshal’s death had cut off Marneffe’s ambitions and his wife’s at the root. The very small salary enjoyed by Sieur Marneffe had compelled the couple to economize in the matter of rent; for in his hands Mademoiselle Valerie Fortin’s fortune had already melted away--partly in paying his debts, and partly in the purchase of necessaries for furnishing a house, but chiefly in gratifying the requirements of a pretty young wife, accustomed in her mother’s house to luxuries she did not choose to dispense with. The situation of the Rue du Doyenne, within easy distance of the War Office, and the gay part of Paris, smiled on Monsieur and Madame Marneffe, and for the last four years they had dwelt under the same roof as Lisbeth Fischer.