"Ah! that's good news!" exclaimed M. de Claviers. "You take a weight off my heart, Chaffin. The fête will be perfect then. This morning a ten-branched stag"; and he hummed the refrain:-- "Un dix cors jeunement. Qui débûche à l'instant. "And to-night a dinner of the sort that Lardin knows how to serve."--Lardin was his cook.--He hummed another hunting-song, La Bourbon:-- "La chasse, la vin, et les belles C'était le refrain de Bourbon. "But we must go and dress, my dear Landri, so that we may be on hand when they arrive, these 'belles'!" "You see," said Chaffin to Landri in an undertone, as they left the dining-room behind the marquis, "you didn't speak to him, you couldn't. To-morrow you won't be able to any better. You felt it. I was sure you would. Look the situation in the face. You will do what I have advised. It's the only way. I shall wait forty-eight hours more before I tell him." He walked away in the direction of his office before Landri had found a word to reply. He felt humiliated by the consciousness that he had justified, by his own attitude, the silence for which he had warmly rebuked his former tutor. He realized fully, however, that the motive of passionate affection to which he yielded in postponing the awakening from that blissful dream on the brink of an abyss had nothing in common with the obscure schemes of a decidedly double-faced personage. Landri had received this impression anew when the other spoke of the despatch alleged to have been sent during the day by his son. The message that he had himself received a half hour before contradicted this improvement, which was clearly fabricated by Chaffin. For what purpose? As a chance shot, and to diminish the probabilities of a consultation with the shrewd Jaubourg concerning the course to be pursued. The young man was unable to divine this reason. But it was equally true that he could no longer tell himself in good faith that it was "to spare my father anxiety." The first shock of surprise was past. His new-born reflections revealed too many riddles in the performance, and first of all this persistent abandonment of the contest, this acceptance of an event which should have been the outcome of nothing less than a desperate resistance. But in that case Chaffin was not loyal? This supposition opened horizons so dark that Landri rejected it. His memories of childhood and youth cried out against it. "He has warned me," he said to himself. "What forced him to do it? My God! how I wish I knew the truth, and above all things what my duty is!"