"Faith! my dear girl, as yet I have no more idea than you what they have to say to me; but each of them asked me for an appointment to-morrow, having a very important matter to discuss with me. I said to Monsieur de Raincy: 'I shall expect you at eleven o'clock;' and to Monsieur de la Beriniere: 'You will find me at home at one;' so I suppose that, at three or four o'clock to-morrow, I shall be able to gratify your curiosity, and to tell you what those gentlemen have confided to me---- Unless it concerns serious matters, which one doesn't tell to little girls; but I fancy not." "You fancy not?--Do you mean that you suspect what it is, father?" "Why--bless my soul!--but, after all, as they will tell me to-morrow, it's useless to indulge in conjectures. Ah! there's something which interests me much more than that." "What is it, father?" "The duel that Batonnin told us about. I pretended, before him, not to put any faith in what he said; but, if all that he told us is true, why, your sister's husband didn't hurt himself by falling on the stairs--and it must have been Gustave with whom he fought." "Oh, no, father, no; I give you my word that it wasn't Gustave." "Aha! so you know the truth, do you? and you never told me anything about it?" "Fanny and her husband didn't want it to become known, and she made me promise not to mention it to you." "But tell me whom Auguste did fight with?" "With a man who was drunk, and who didn't know what he was saying--that's the whole of it. And Auguste didn't attach the slightest importance to it." "Very good! I hope he didn't; but I am convinced, none the less, that Gustave was mixed up in it in some way, and I repeat what I have said to you before: that young man must never come here again!--Good-night, my dear!" "Good-night, father!" Adolphine retired to her own room; the two appointments with her father, solicited by two men who had persecuted her with their attentions during the evening, caused her a vague feeling of uneasiness; a secret presentiment told her that she would be the subject of the interviews to be held on the morrow, and she was impatient to know whether her fears were justified. The next day, Adolphine did not leave her room, in order to avoid meeting the two gentlemen who had appointments with her father. At precisely eleven o'clock she heard the bell, and honest Madeleine came and said to her: "It's the tall young man who sang with you last night, mamzelle; he asked for monsieur your father, and he's with him now." "Very well, Madeleine; if he should happen to ask for me, you must tell him that I have a headache and cannot leave my room." "I understand, mamzelle." "And come and tell me when he has gone." "Yes, mamzelle." Adolphine counted the minutes; but Anatole had not gone when the clock struck twelve. She lost her patience; she said to herself: