"What makes me think so?" replied Biscarros, determined to bring conviction home to the minds of his hearers. "Wait, and I will tell you." "Yes, tell us, my good friend," said the duke. "Egad! you are an amusing fellow." "Monseigneur is too kind," said Biscarros. "It was like this." The duke became all ears, and Nanon listened with clenched fists. "I suspected nothing, and had taken the little fair-haired cavalier for a man readily enough, when I met Monsieur de Canolles half-way upstairs, with a candle in his left hand, and in his right a small glove, which he was examining, and passionately smelling--" "Ho! ho! ho!" roared the duke, whose spleen vanished with amazing rapidity, as soon as he ceased to have any apprehension on his own account. "A glove!" exclaimed Nanon, trying to remember if she had not left such a pledge in the possession of her knight; "a glove like this?" As she spoke, she handed the inn-keeper one of her own gloves. "No," said Biscarros, "a man's glove." "A man's glove? Monsieur de Canolles staring at a man's glove, and passionately smelling it? You are mad!" "No; for it belonged to the little gentleman, the pretty little blond cavalier, who neither ate nor drank, and was afraid of the dark,--a tiny glove, in which madame could hardly put her hand, although madame certainly has a pretty hand--" Nanon gave a sharp little cry, as if she had been struck by an invisible arrow. "I trust," said she, with a mighty effort, "that you have all the information you desire, monseigneur; that you know all you wished to know." With trembling lips, clenched teeth, and gleaming eyes, she pointed with outstretched finger to the door, while Biscarros, noticing these indications of wrath upon the young woman's face, was altogether non-plussed, and stood with mouth and eyes wide open. "If the young gentleman's absence is such a calamity," he thought, "his return would be a blessed thing. I will flatter this worthy nobleman with a hopeful suggestion, that he may have a hearty appetite." In pursuance of this determination, Biscarros assumed his most gracious expression, gracefully put his right leg forward, and remarked,-- "After all, though the gentleman has gone, he may return at any moment." The duke smiled at this beginning. "True," he said; "why should he not return? Perhaps, indeed, he has returned already. Go and ascertain, Monsieur Biscarros, and let me know." "But the breakfast?" said Nanon, hastily; "I am dying of hunger." "To be sure," said the duke; "Courtauvaux will go. Come here, Courtauvaux; go to Master Biscarros' inn, and see if Monsieur le Baron de Canolles has returned. If he is not there, ask questions, find out what you can, look for him in the neighborhood. I am anxious to breakfast with him. Go!" Courtauvaux left the room, and Biscarros, noticing the embarrassed silence of the others, prepared to put forth a new expedient. "Don't you see that madame is motioning you to retire?" said Francinette.