"To-morrow, my girl, people will remember that the name of Angelique de Sarzeau-Vendome has been bandied about as it should not be. Oh, if I could find out the name of the scoundrel who has dared...." At that moment, Hyacinthe, the duke's valet, came in and said that monsieur le duc was wanted on the telephone. Still fuming, he took down the receiver and growled: "Well? Who is it? Yes, it's the Duc de Sarzeau-Vendome speaking." A voice replied: "I want to apologize to you, monsieur le duc, and to Mlle. Angelique. It's my secretary's fault." "Your secretary?" "Yes, the invitations were only a rough draft which I meant to submit to you. Unfortunately my secretary thought...." "But, tell me, monsieur, who are you?" "What, monsieur le duc, don't you know my voice? The voice of your future son-in-law?" "What!" "Arsene Lupin." The duke dropped into a chair. His face was livid. "Arsene Lupin ... it's he ... Arsene Lupin...." Angelique gave a smile: "You see, father, it's only a joke, a hoax." But the duke's rage broke out afresh and he began to walk up and down, moving his arms: "I shall go to the police!... The fellow can't be allowed to make a fool of me in this way!... If there's any law left in the land, it must be stopped!" Hyacinthe entered the room again. He brought two visiting-cards. "Chotois? Lepetit? Don't know them." "They are both journalists, monsieur le duc." "What do they want?" "They would like to speak to monsieur le duc with regard to ... the marriage...." "Turn them out!" exclaimed the duke. "Kick them out! And tell the porter not to admit scum of that sort to my house in future." "Please, father ..." Angelique ventured to say. "As for you, shut up! If you had consented to marry one of your cousins when I wanted you to this wouldn't have happened." The same evening, one of the two reporters printed, on the front page of his paper, a somewhat fanciful story of his expedition to the family mansion of the Sarzeau-Vendomes, in the Rue de Varennes, and expatiated pleasantly upon the old nobleman's wrathful protests. The next morning, another newspaper published an interview with Arsene Lupin which was supposed to have taken place in a lobby at the Opera. Arsene Lupin retorted in a letter to the editor: "I share my prospective father-in-law's indignation to the full. The sending out of the invitations was a gross breach of etiquette for which I am not responsible, but for which I wish to make a public apology. Why, sir, the date of the marriage is not yet fixed. My bride's father suggests early in May. She and I think that six weeks is really too long to wait!..."