my secretary thought...."

"But, tell me, monsieur, who are you?"

"What, monsieur le duc, don't you know my voice? The voice of your
future son-in-law?"

"What!"

"Arsene Lupin."

The duke dropped into a chair. His face was livid.

"Arsene Lupin ... it's he ... Arsene Lupin...."

Angelique gave a smile:

"You see, father, it's only a joke, a hoax."

But the duke's rage broke out afresh and he began to walk up and down,
moving his arms:

"I shall go to the police!... The fellow can't be allowed to make a fool
of me in this way!... If there's any law left in the land, it must be
stopped!"

Hyacinthe entered the room again. He brought two visiting-cards.

"Chotois? Lepetit? Don't know them."

"They are both journalists, monsieur le duc."

"What do they want?"

"They would like to speak to monsieur le duc with regard to ... the
marriage...."

"Turn them out!" exclaimed the duke. "Kick them out! And tell the porter
not to admit scum of that sort to my house in future."

"Please, father ..." Angelique ventured to say.

"As for you, shut up! If you had consented to marry one of your cousins
when I wanted you to this wouldn't have happened."

The same evening, one of the two reporters printed, on the front page of
his paper, a somewhat fanciful story of his expedition to the family
mansion of the Sarzeau-Vendomes, in the Rue de Varennes, and expatiated
pleasantly upon the old nobleman's wrathful protests.

The next morning, another newspaper published an interview with Arsene
Lupin which was supposed to have taken place in a lobby at the Opera.
Arsene Lupin retorted in a letter to the editor:

"I share my prospective father-in-law's indignation to the full.
The sending out of the invitations was a gross breach of etiquette
for which I am not responsible, but for which I wish to make a
public apology. Why, sir, the date of the marriage is not yet
fixed. My bride's father suggests early in May. She and I think
that six weeks is really too long to wait!..."

That which gave a special piquancy to the affair and added immensely to
the enjoyment of the friends of the family was the duke's well-known
character: his pride and the uncompromising nature of his ideas and
principles. Duc Jean was the last descendant of the Barons de Sarzeau,
the most ancient family in Brittany; he was the lineal descendant of
that Sarzeau who, upon marrying a Vendome, refused to bear the new title