“You at first doubted the wisdom of some of the others, which you now see to be very necessary,” she replied. “Believe me, this also has its uses; in time you will see them; and what am I to think of your affection, if you refuse me such trifles at our first interview?” Silas confounded himself in explanations and apologies; in the middle of these she looked up at the clock and clapped her hands together with a suppressed scream. “Heavens!” she cried, “is it so late? I have not an instant to lose. Alas, we poor women, what slaves we are! What have I not risked for you already?” And after repeating her directions, which she artfully combined with caresses and the most abandoned looks, she bade him farewell and disappeared among the crowd. The whole of the next day Silas was filled with a sense of great importance; he was now sure she was a countess; and when evening came he minutely obeyed her orders and was at the corner of the Luxembourg Gardens by the hour appointed. No one was there. He waited nearly half-an-hour, looking in the face of every one who passed or loitered near the spot; he even visited the neighbouring corners of the Boulevard and made a complete circuit of the garden railings; but there was no beautiful countess to throw herself into his arms. At last, and most reluctantly, he began to retrace his steps towards his hotel. On the way he remembered the words he had heard pass between Madame Zéphyrine and the blond young man, and they gave him an indefinite uneasiness. “It appears,” he reflected, “that every one has to tell lies to our porter.” He rang the bell, the door opened before him, and the porter in his bed-clothes came to offer him a light. “Has he gone?” inquired the porter. “He? Whom do you mean?” asked Silas, somewhat sharply, for he was irritated by his disappointment. “I did not notice him go out,” continued the porter, “but I trust you paid him. We do not care, in this house, to have lodgers who cannot meet their liabilities.” “What the devil do you mean?” demanded Silas rudely. “I cannot understand a word of this farrago.” “The short blond young man who came for his debt,” returned the other. “Him it is I mean. Who else should it be, when I had your orders to admit no one else?” “Why, good God, of course he never came,” retorted Silas. “I believe what I believe,” returned the porter, putting his tongue into his cheek with a most roguish air. “You are an insolent scoundrel,” cried Silas, and, feeling that he had made a ridiculous exhibition of asperity, and at the same time bewildered by a dozen alarms, he turned and began to run upstairs. “Do you not want a light then?” cried the porter. But Silas only hurried the faster, and did not pause until he had reached the seventh landing and stood in front of his own door. There he waited a moment to recover his breath, assailed by the worst forebodings and almost dreading to enter the room.