"What's that you're saying?" cried the sitar master, rising in surprise,--"for me to be quiet! Does that noise out there disturb you too much? To the devil with the street singers who prevent you from hearing me! I hardly know how to restrain myself from going to drive them away with a few blows from my good blade Rolande!" "If I only dared open my window for a few moments," sighed Blanche. "But no, I must not, for M. Touquet has firmly forbidden me to do so. What a pretty, pretty air! Ah, I shall easily remember that, I love to eternity My darling is all to me; that's the refrain." "No, divine Blanche, you are mistaken; these are the words,-- I have lost my turtle-dove, And her flight I must pursue,-- Is she not the one I love?" The singers departed. Blanche then left the casement, and, on turning, saw Chaudoreille with his neck elongated, the better to execute a note. She could not restrain a desire to laugh, which was evoked by the face of the chevalier; and the latter remained with his mouth open, not knowing how to take the young girl's laughter, when Marguerite entered the room. "It's burned at last," said the old woman as she came in. "What is burned," cried Chaudoreille,--"the roast?" "Ah, yes, indeed; it's a book of witchcraft, of magic. It was very hard to get it to burn, those books are so accustomed to fire." "What is that you say, Marguerite? You have books of magic,--you who are afraid of everything? Do you wish to enter into communication with the spirits of the other world?" "Ah, God keep me from it, Monsieur Chaudoreille. But I'll tell you how that book came into my hands, where it didn't stay long, for it seemed to me that that cursed conjuring-book burned my fingers. My master wished me to change my room--because--but I oughtn't to tell you that." "Try to remember what you wished to tell me." "Well, it seems I must quit the room I've occupied, to go into one in which no one has set foot during the eight years I have been in the house; and, to judge by the look of it, no one had visited it for a long time before. It's so dark, so dismal; the window-panes, which are two inches thick with dust, hardly allow the daylight to penetrate into the room." "I had an idea--God forgive me--that she was going to recount to me all the spiders' webs she had found there. What do you think of it, my charming pupil?" Blanche did not answer, for she had paid no attention to what Marguerite said; she was committing to memory the sweet refrain which had appeared so pretty to her, and was repeating in a low voice,-- "I love to eternity;" and Chaudoreille, seeing her steeped in reverie, would not disturb her, fully persuaded that the young girl could not defend her heart against the charms of the villanelle.