"Very well; I will go some time to-day to look at it, and if it seems to me to be suitable I will tell you this evening, so that you can go to see it. For ten months have passed; the time is not very far away when I shall be able to call you my wife! so it is none too soon for me to see about getting an apartment ready." "Do so, my dear; you can tell me to-night if you have found what we want." About five o'clock, the widow went to her father's. Monsieur Gerbault always welcomed his daughter kindly, and Adolphine did her utmost to smile on her sister. "So you're really going to marry Gustave this time, are you?" said Monsieur Gerbault. "Why shouldn't I, father? Do you think I shall be doing wrong?" "No--but I regret that you didn't marry him a year ago." "Why, father, it seems to me that I acted very wisely! Gustave had only a very modest salary then. Monsieur Monleard offered me a fortune, and I could not hesitate; the sequel didn't come up to my hopes; but certainly no one could have foreseen that." "But you are very lucky to fall in with a man who still loves you after you have once cast him off." "Mon Dieu! father, if Gustave had not loved me, some other man would have turned up--that's all there is to that." "Possibly; at all events, I see that you have an answer for everything." Adolphine listened to her sister with an air of amazement, but she did not venture to make a single reflection; she kept to herself the thoughts which Fanny's remarks inspired; and she avoided, so far as she possibly could, any conversation with her on the subject of her approaching marriage to Gustave. The evening brought to Monsieur Gerbault's salon his faithful whist players, and Gustave, who shook hands warmly with the man whom he already looked upon as his father-in-law, and affectionately with Adolphine. She, by an involuntary movement, withdrew her hand at first; but the next moment she forced herself to smile, and offered her hand to Gustave, saying: "I beg your pardon. I thought you were Monsieur de Raincy." "And she absolutely refuses to give her hand to him," said Fanny, with a laugh, "although he offers his name in exchange for it. Don't you think, Gustave, that she makes a great mistake in refusing that young man?" "Why so, if she doesn't love him?" "As if people married for love!" Realizing that she had said something which might distress Gustave, the young woman hastily added: "When a woman has never been married, she ought to be reasonable; with a widow, it's different; she can afford to obey the dictates of her heart." These words speedily restored the serenity of Gustave's brow, which had become a little clouded. A moment later, Monsieur Batonnin arrived, and, having saluted the company, said, with a radiant expression: "I have just met someone, whom you will probably see this evening, for when I said: 'I am going to pass the evening at Monsieur Gerbault's,' he exclaimed: 'Oh! I mean to go there, too, if only for a moment.'"