I cannot doubt that, with your help, I shall be able to speak with the count." Jarnonville listened attentively to what Ambroisine said; for a moment he seemed moved, but almost instantly, as if he regretted that he had allowed his heart to be touched, he pushed the girl away and would have walked on. "A mere love story!" he said; "a woman seduced! What have I to do with all that? Comte Léodgard's intrigues do not concern me!" "But a poor girl who is on the point of becoming a mother, and whose child, spurned by its father, will have no name, nothing to eat--that concerns you, for you are compassionate to children, I know!" Jarnonville stopped; he passed his hand across his forehead, heaved a profound sigh, and returned to Ambroisine, saying: "Come with me!" The chevalier retraced his steps to Léodgard's house and knocked; the gate swung open and he bade Ambroisine enter with him. Seeing the girl in the courtyard, the concierge, who recognized her, cried: "What are you doing here? Monsieur le comte will not receive you, as you know quite well! I have orders to send you away whenever you come here, so----" "This young woman is with me," said Jarnonville, in a tone that imposed silence on the concierge. "Hold your peace!" And taking Ambroisine's hand, he led her through the vestibule at the right into a room preceding the banquet hall, and said: "Remain here. I will find Léodgard and send him to you, without telling him who it is that wishes to see him." "Oh! thanks! thanks a thousand times, seigneur!--I knew that you would help me!" Jarnonville left the room; and Ambroisine, undismayed, awaited Léodgard's appearance. She was not embarrassed at finding herself in that sumptuous abode. Grandeur loses all its prestige when it loses its power to inspire respect. Hardly five minutes had passed when Léodgard entered the room in which Ambroisine awaited him. "A lady to see me?" he exclaimed; "why does she not come to the salons where my guests are assembled?" "Because that is not her place, monsieur le comte, and because, no doubt, you would not be pleased to see her there," said Ambroisine, stepping forward with a resolute air. As he recognized Hugonnet's daughter, Léodgard could not restrain an angry gesture. He glanced at her disdainfully and muttered: "What! is it you? By hell! you are persistent! You have been to my house too often already; you must have understood that I did not choose to receive you. You have no right to violate a person's domicile thus!--Understand, my dear, that this is not your father's bathing establishment, where anyone who pleases has a right to enter." "Oh! I know quite well that I am not in my father's house, monsieur le comte; there is no possibility of mistake on that score. For Master Hugonnet's house is the house of an honorable man, from which those who come to demand justice are not turned away." "On my soul, I believe that she presumes to be impertinent!--Begone! I have nothing to say to you!"