"Really, my pretty child! And why do they not also say that when he pillages travellers, the brigand gives them sweetmeats and preserves to make up to them for the money he steals? What an absurd idea--that a man who attacks with arms in his hand does not use his arms when he is resisted! But there are people who delight to tell such foolish tales, and who pretend to know everything better than anybody else.--I would just like to have a hundred men, well armed; I would lie in ambush under the Pont-aux-Choux, and within a week I would have captured, hanged, or shot the famous Giovanni!" "Ah! so that is how you expect to capture him?" muttered Miretta in a trembling voice, gazing at the little man with eyes that flashed fire. "It seems to me to be very easy; when you know almost the spot where a bird has its nest, you can find it. But I beg pardon, mademoiselle; I see that you consider me too talkative.--I was saying that Thomas's cottage is isolated; but within about three gunshots of it, toward Paris, there is a very pretty place, a very elegant sort of pavilion, which belongs now, I believe, to the Baron de Montrevert, but which formerly belonged to Comte Léodgard, who lost it at cards. This pavilion is what our seigneurs of the court call a _petite maison_, a place to which they go to enjoy themselves in secret, to which they take their mistresses or courtesans; and the young count----" "Enough, monsieur, enough!" said Valentine, with a glance at the young man which cut him short. "This does not interest me. That the Comte de Marvejols should ruin himself like a gentleman, that he should commit a thousand follies--fight, drink too much, run in debt--all that I can understand! But that he should fall in love with a bath keeper's daughter, that that passion should keep him away from the world--that is what seems inconceivable to me!--But this plume that you found--are you willing to give it to me?" Bahuchet rubbed his chin, assumed his mocking expression, and said at last: "Give it to you, mademoiselle?--You are most worthy of it, certainly, but I have tried it on my hood, and it was not unbecoming to me; on the word of a Basochian, it made me quite the dandy! Ha! ha!" "Not so loud, monsieur; you will wake my aunt!" "Ah! to be sure; the honorable and venerable lady is taking a nap." "When I ask you for this plume, which is of some value doubtless, I do not mean to suggest, monsieur, that you should make me a present of it; and I will beg you to accept this purse in exchange, not as the price of what I ask of you, but as a souvenir of me." The little clerk hastily cast a furtive glance at the pretty velvet purse, which was not unlike an alms purse, and from which issued a sound very pleasant to his ear. He bowed to the floor before the noble maiden, and, almost kneeling, took the purse from her hand.