If I ask my father, he will laugh at my curiosity, while you, Monsieur, if you are present at the conference, you will tell me all." A wish thus expressed was a command.

The marquis bowed and obeyed.
"She dismisses me," he said to himself as he ascended the staircase, "nothing could be more evident; and that without much ceremony.

Why the devil does she wish to get rid of me ?" Why?
Because a single peal of the bell announced a visitor for Mlle.
Blanche; because she was expecting a visit from her friend; and because she wished at any cost to prevent a meeting between Martial and Marie-Anne.
She did not love him, and yet an agony of jealousy was torturing her.
Such was her nature.
Her presentiments were realized.

It was, indeed, Mlle.

Lacheneur who was awaiting her in the drawing-room.
The poor girl was paler than usual; but nothing in her manner betrayed the frightful anguish she had suffered during the past two or three days.
And her voice, in asking from her former friend a list of "customers," was as calm and as natural as in other days, when she was asking her to come and spend an afternoon at Sairmeuse.
So, when the two girls embraced each other, their roles were reversed.
It was Marie-Anne who had been crushed by misfortune; it was Mlle.
Blanche who wept.
But, while writing a list of the names of persons in the neighborhood with whom she was acquainted, Mlle.