"Nothing--not a crumb of anything until I find out about these lovers. Did you ever know anything like it, gentlemen? Here on one side are broken heads and broken hearts--on the other, a charming old gentleman whom I have known for years, and whom I love dearly, playing bear and ready to eat up both of these young turtle doves. When I remonstrate he wants to know whether I will have my chicken roasted on a spit or _en casserole_! Oh, you are too silly, Lemois!" "But she is like my daughter, madame," replied Lemois humbly, and yet with a certain dignity. "And, therefore, she mustn't marry an honest young fisherman. Is that what you mean?" Lemois merely inclined his head. "And pray what would you make of her--a countess?" A grim baffled smile ruffled the edges of the old man's lips as he tried again to turn the conversation, but she would not listen. "No, I see it all! You want some flat-chested apothecary, or some fat clerk, or a notary, or a grocer, or--Oh, I know all about it! Now do you go and get your dinner ready--anything will suit me--and when it is over and Monsieur Herbert is firmly settled in his big chair, with the funny heads listening to everything we say, I am going to tell you a story about one of your mismated marriages, and I want you to listen, Monsieur Bear, with your terrible growl and your great claws and your ugly teeth. No, I won't take any apologies," and another laugh--a whole chime of silver bells this time--rang through the room. "What a pity it is," she continued after her opponent had left the room, "that people who get old forget so soon what their own youth has meant to them. He takes this child, puts a soul into her by his kindness, and then, when she becomes a woman, builds a fence around her--not for her protection but for his own pride. It will be so much more _honorable_, he says to himself, for the great house of Lemois to have one of his distinguished waifs _honorably_ settled in an _honorable_ home," and she lifted her shoulders ever so slightly. "Not a word, you will please note, about the girl or what _she_ wants--nothing whatever of that kind. And he is such a dear too. But I won't have it, and I'm going to tell him so!" she added, her brown eyes blazing as her heart went out once more to the girl.