ne, are you mad? Don't cry like this,
little girl, don't cry like this, like a fool: I only wanted to know if you
had heard anything.

--No, father, sobbed Suzanne under her bed-clothes.

--You did not hear him? Well! very good. That is all, confound it. Another
time we will keep our eyes open, that is all.

But the shock had been too great, and Suzanne continued to utter sobs; she
decided, however, to show her face all bathed in tears, and said to her
father in a reproachful tone:

--And besides I did not know what you meant with your night-robber and your
asparagus-bed; I was fast asleep, and you woke me up with a start to tell
me that.

--True, I have been rather abrupt, I was wrong; well, don't let us talk
about it any more, hang it.

But Suzanne, having recovered herself, wanted to enjoy her triumph to the
end.

--I don't know what you could have meant, she added still in tears, by
coming and telling me in an angry tone that a man had been walking in your
asparagus, as if it were my fault.

--It is true nevertheless, Suzanne. It is quite plain. I arrived this
morning quite dusty from my journey, and went down into the garden very
quietly as I usually do, thinking of nothing, when all at once I stopped.
What did I behold? ... footsteps, child, a man's footsteps, right in the
middle of my borders. "Hang it," I cried, "here is a blackguard who makes
himself at home." I followed their track, which led me to the wall of the
house and right up to the stair-case. That was rather bad, you know. There
was still some fresh soil on the steps. Good Heavens! I asked myself then
what it meant, and I came to you to learn.

--To me, father. But I know no more about it than you do. Why do you
suppose that I know more about it than you?

Durand had great confidence in his daughter: he knew her to be giddy and
frivolous, but he did not suppose for an instant her giddiness and
frivolity amounted to the forgetfulness of duty.

Many fathers in this manner allow themselves to be deceived by their
children with the same blindness and meekness as foolish husbands are
deceived by their wives, till the day, when the bandage which covered their
eyes, falls at length, and they discover to their amazement that the
_cherub_ which they had brought up with so much care and love, and whose
long roll of good qualities, talents and virtues they loved to recount
before strangers, is nothing but a little being saturated with vice and
hide