Wounded in his self-love and baulked in his passion, the young Englishman had quickly come to his senses, and this the more readily from the fact that, as his love for Sonia Danidoff cooled more and more, he felt his heart more and more stirred and charmed by a youthful passion for the pretty child he supposed to be niece of the old moneylender, the grotesque M. Moche. Moreover, startled by the indignant refusal his first audacious proposal had provoked, Ascott had immediately realized that this was not the right way to deal with the old business man. In fact, when he accompanied Nini on her leaving the house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau, he had also seen pretty clearly that the latter, good, obedient girl as she was, must needs entertain the highest respect for her uncle. So he had wisely told himself how desirable it was in the first place to win the old man’s favour in order to secure the child’s good graces. The young Englishman accordingly invited M. Moche to lunch, lunch for two, _tête-à-tête_. Moreover, despite the instinctive repulsion he felt for the fellow, he found himself forced to admit, before the meal was over, that he was after all a cheerful boon-companion, not lacking in wit and possessed of a store of racy anecdotes well calculated to dispel his melancholy. Adroitly enough, Ascott brought the conversation round to the subject of M. Moche’s little niece, displaying an interest in the child’s future, and he deemed himself more than clever when, after endless beating about the bush, he finally succeeded in persuading Père Moche to dine with him and bring little Nini with him one evening soon. Poor fellow, he little dreamt he had to do with a man far cleverer than himself, and that the favour he had obtained at the cost of so many difficulties was really and truly but the consummation of the plot conceived by the Machiavellian business agent and his abominable little accomplice. ... Thus Ascott arrived to the minute at the _rendezvous_, in the omnibus office in the Place de la Bastille at 7.30, his heart in his mouth, his mind in a joyous tumult, his arms full of flowers, all for the woman towards whom he now began to feel a genuine and sincere affection! * * * * *