"The Duchesse de Senneterre!" repeated the hunchback. "Not quite." "Of course not, but the matter is virtually settled." "So at last you are satisfied with Gerald, Mlle. de Beaumesnil, and me, are you not, my dear baroness?" "Delighted, my dear marquis." "That is all I want to know. Now I can devote my attention to that stout man and your serpent of a husband, whose coils--" "What! M. de la Rochaigue has dared--" "Ah, my poor baroness, your ingenuousness rends my heart. Look, listen and profit thereby, poor credulous woman that you are!" As the marquis uttered these words, M. de Mornand was already bowing low before Mlle. de Beaumesnil to remind her of the engagement she had made to dance with him. CHAPTER XV. THE PROSPECTIVE MINISTER'S DEFEAT. "Mademoiselle has not forgotten that she promised me this dance, I trust," said M. de Mornand, complacently. "Will she do me the honour to accept my arm?" "That cannot be, M. de Mornand," interposed M. de Maillefort, who was still leaning over the back of the sofa on which Ernestine was seated. M. de Mornand straightened himself up hastily, and, perceiving the marquis, demanded with great hauteur: "What can not be, monsieur?" "You can not dance with Mlle. de Beaumesnil, monsieur," answered the hunchback, still in the same quiet tone. M. de Mornand shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, then, turning to Ernestine, repeated: "Will mademoiselle do me the honour to accept my arm?" Embarrassed and bewildered, Ernestine turned to M. de Maillefort as if to ask his advice, and again the marquis repeated in the same quiet but impressive tone, emphasising each word strongly: "Mlle. de Beaumesnil can not and must not dance with M. de Mornand." Ernestine was so impressed by M. de Maillefort's grave, almost solemn manner that, turning to M. de Mornand, she said, casting down her eyes: "I must beg you to excuse me, monsieur, for I feel too fatigued to keep the promise I made you." M. de Mornand bowed low before Ernestine without uttering a word, but as he straightened himself up he cast a meaning glance at the hunchback. That gentleman answered it by pointing to one of the doors of the gallery towards which he, too, directed his steps, leaving Mlle. de Beaumesnil in a state of great mental perturbation. This little scene had passed unnoticed, the few words interchanged between the marquis and M. de Mornand having been uttered in subdued tones and in the midst of the confusion that always accompanies the forming of a quadrille, so no one but Madame de la Rochaigue and the Duchesse de Senneterre had the slightest suspicion of what had occurred. M. de Mornand on his way to the gallery was accosted successively by M. de la Rochaigue and M. de Ravil, who had watched with mingled wonder and uneasiness their protege's futile efforts to induce the heiress to keep her engagement. "What! you are not going to dance?" inquired De Ravil.