Rising from the sofa on which she had fallen after pacing the room in a fever, she moved rapidly along the corridor which led to the marquis' study. Her fingers were on the door-knob, and her head was whirling with persuasive arguments, when of a sudden her hand dropped powerless. There were low voices murmuring within. The parquet all around the closed door was strewn with straw and bottles, while on an open packing-case was scrawled in large letters the name of Aglae Brunelle. A cold shiver passed over her frame. She was with him now, that woman. On familiar terms, indeed, since her boxes were unpacked by Clovis! They were never weary of communing together, with heads close and hair mingling, discussing subjects which absorbed them both, but in which she would never have a part! The pride of the young chatelaine rebelled. She could not complain before the domineering adventuress. Would it not be humiliating enough to confess to _him_ that his beautiful and high-born wife was jealous of a stranger, sprung from nowhere in particular, who was rather plain than otherwise? Reluctantly returning to the boudoir, she took a pen and, after a pause of meditation, flung it down. Write to her fond father, begging him to intervene? No. He believed that she was happy, and should believe it to the end, however much she might be made to suffer. He should share her joys, but not her sorrows, the good father who adored her so. She must endeavour to remedy her own mistakes, fight this rival single-handed, win back the errant husband by the female arts which hitherto she had affected to despise, and understood so little. Was she strong enough for the difficult task? Perchance the abbe would assist; but was it not another bitter thing to summon one to the rescue who, though repentant, had once so grievously forgotten himself? Meanwhile, though he kept up a show of airy levity, the cunning Pharamond was, in a different way, almost as perturbed as she. The strides of the affinity were prodigious, whereas his own siege of Gabrielle made no advance at all. Unless he grappled with the situation without delay, he would assuredly be worsted. But how to grapple with it, by cajolery or threats? Or would it be advisable to practise the arts of the bravo? Was the hand of cordial friendship to be extended to the interloper, or was she forthwith to be stabbed in the back? Pharamond considered himself a genius, and knew that one attribute of genius is to know when to seize an opportunity. Consider the knotty problem as he would, he could not come to a decision. Perhaps, for the present, a waiting game would be the best to play. The hand of friendship first, as an experiment; a stab with the poignard by and by.