stimate, twenty thousand francs.

"Clergeot," thought he, "didn't exaggerate a bit."

Juliette's entrance disturbed his reflections.

She had taken off her dress, and had hastily thrown about her a loose
black dressing-gown, trimmed with cherry-coloured satin. Her beautiful
hair, slightly disordered after her drive, fell in cascades about her
neck, and curled behind her delicate ears. She dazzled old Tabaret. He
began to understand.

"You wished, sir, to speak with me?" she inquired, bowing gracefully.

"Madame," replied M. Tabaret, "I am a friend of Noel Gerdy's, I may say
his best friend, and--"

"Pray sit down, sir," interrupted the young woman.

She placed herself on a sofa, just showing the tips of her little feet
encased in slippers matching her dressing-gown, while the old man sat
down in a chair.

"I come, madame," he resumed, "on very serious business. Your presence
at M. Gerdy's--"

"Ah," cried Juliette, "he already knows of my visit? Then he must employ
a detective."

"My dear child--" began Tabaret, paternally.

"Oh! I know, sir, what your errand is. Noel has sent you here to scold
me. He forbade my going to his house, but I couldn't help it. It's
annoying to have a puzzle for a lover, a man whom one knows nothing
whatever about, a riddle in a black coat and a white cravat, a sad and
mysterious being--"

"You have been imprudent."

"Why? Because he is going to get married? Why does he not admit it
then?"

"Suppose that it is not true."

"Oh, but it is! He told that old shark Clergeot so, who repeated it to
me. Any way, he must be plotting something in that head of his; for the
last month he has been so peculiar, he has changed so, that I hardly
recognize him."

Old Tabaret was especially anxious to know whether Noel had prepared
an _alibi_ for the evening of the crime. For him that was the grand
question. If he had, he was certainly guilty; if not, he might still be
innocent. Madame Juliette, he had no doubt, could enlighten him on that
point.

Consequently he had presented himself with his lesson all prepared, his
little trap all set.

The young woman's outburst disconcerted him a little; but trusting to
the chances of conversation, he resumed.

"Will you oppose Noel's marriage, then?"

"His marriage!" cried Juliette, bursting out into a laugh; "ah, the poor
boy! If he meets no worse obstacle than myself, his path will be smooth.
Let him marry by all means, the sooner the better,