For ten minutes Mathilde wrote rapidly, and then spread the results of her exertions out before her, in the shape of two notes and a cablegram, and read them aloud triumphantly. The first note was directed to Monsieur Charles Chapuis, at the Hôtel du Rhin, place Vendôme:-- "If Monsieur Chapuis is a man of honor," it ran briefly, "he will break all engagements, however important, for this evening, and present himself chez Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Poirier at seven o'clock, on a matter intimately touching the good fame of his family. The sister of Monsieur, Mademoiselle Louise Chapuis, is chez Mademoiselle de Poirier." The second note was addressed to Mademoiselle Thaïs de Trémonceau, at 27 bis, rue de la Faisanderie. "A friend advises Mademoiselle Thaïs de Trémonceau that Monsieur Charles Chapuis dines with Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Poirier this evening at half past seven." And the cablegram was to Señor Miguel Cevasco, Reconquista 21, Buenos-Ayres, République Argentine. "19 rides in the carriage of 52. 26." The point of which observation lay in the fact that Dodo confessed to nineteen, and Señor Miguel to fifty-two, and Gabrielle to twenty-six. It was a bold play, and one foredoomed to failure unless each link in the chain held true. But Mademoiselle de Poirier was no novice, and experience had long since taught her that success is the child of audacity; so, ten minutes later, Achille was speeding, in one cab, toward the place Vendôme, pausing only at the bureau de télégraphe on the corner of the rue Pierre Charron and the avenue Marceau, and Mathilde was speeding in another toward the rue de la Faisanderie: and Gabrielle herself was making life not worth living for Louis, her long-suffering maître-d'hôtel. The upshot of this triple commotion was that, as the clock on her mantel struck seven, Mademoiselle Gabrielle de Poirier was posing on a chaise-longue in correct imitation of David's "Madame Récamier," except for a wonderful black gown, when Achille announced Monsieur Charles Chapuis. Dodo entered the room in immaculate evening dress, but with a touch of embarrassment in his manner which betrayed his years. He was good to look upon, was Dodo, tall, straight, and slight, with the ruddy olive skin, the firm, square fling of chest and shoulder, the narrowness of waist, and the confident swing of long, slender, but sinewy legs with which one is blessed at nineteen in Bouches-du-Rhône. Gabrielle, taking note of him from under her covert, languid lids, was compelled, for once, to mental candor. "I comprehend Thaïs," she said to herself, but to Dodo, "Monsieur, I felicitate you. You have the true spirit of chivalry." "My sister"--began Dodo. "Is, no doubt, at the Hôtel de Choiseuil," answered Gabrielle, coolly, fanning herself. "In any event she is not here. Oh, she _was_ here--yes; but she had gone--gone _before_ I sent you the note. Be seated, monsieur."