"The pretension is curious!" said Madame de Lucenay, with a burst of sardonic laughter. "Know that when a lackey robs me--I do not break with him--I turn him out." "Madame!" "Let us put a stop to this," said the duchess, in a decided and haughty tone. "Your presence is repugnant to me! What do you want here? Have you not got your money?" "I was right then. I guessed it was you. These twenty-five thousand francs--" "Your last forgery is withdrawn, is it not? The honor of your family name is saved. It is saved. Go away. Ah! believe--I much regret this money--it would have succored so many honest people; but it was necessary to think of your father's shame and of mine." "Then, Clotilde, you know all! Oh! look you now; nothing remains for me but to die," cried Florestan in the most pathetic and despairing tone. A burst of indignant laughter from the duchess replied to this tragical exclamation, and she added, between two fits of hilarity, "I never could have thought that infamy could make itself so ridiculous!" "Madame!" cried Florestan, almost blind with rage. The folding doors were thrown open suddenly, and a valet announced, "His Grace the Duke de Montbrison!" Notwithstanding his habitual self-command, Florestan could hardly restrain himself, which a man more accustomed to society than the duke would certainly have remarked. Montbrison was scarcely eighteen. Let the reader imagine the charming face of a young girl, fair, white, and red, whose rosy lips and smooth chin shall be slightly shaded with an incipient beard; add to this, large brown eyes, still slightly timid, a figure as graceful as that of the duchess, and he will have, perhaps, an idea of the appearance of this young duke, the most ideal Cherubino that a Countess and a Susanna had ever put on a woman's cap, after admiring the whiteness of his ivory neck. The viscount had the weakness or the audacity to remain. "How kind you are, Conrad, to have thought of me tonight!" said Madame de Lucenay in the most affectionate tone, extending her beautiful hand to the young duke who hastened to shake hands with his cousin; but Clotilde shrugged her shoulders, and said to him gayly, "You may kiss them, cousin: you wear your gloves." "Pardon me, cousin," said the youth; and he pressed his lips on the charming hand she presented him. "What are you going to do this evening, Conrad?" demanded the duchess, without taking the least notice of Florestan. "Nothing, cousin; when I leave here, I am going to my club." "Not at all: you shall accompany M. de Lucenay and me to Madame de Senneval's; it is her night; she has already asked me several times to present you." "Cousin, I shall be too happy to place myself under your orders." "And besides, frankly, I do not like to see you so soon accustom yourself to this taste for clubs; you have every requisite to be perfectly well received and even sought after in society. So you must go oftener." "Yes, cousin."