he company," said Bixiou with a bow.

"Tell me the real facts," Montes went on, heedless of Bixiou's
interjection.

"Well, then," replied du Tillet, "I have the honor to tell you that I am
asked to the Crevel wedding."

"Ah, ha! Combabus holds a brief for Madame Marneffe!" said Josepha,
rising solemnly.

She went round to Montes with a tragic look, patted him kindly on the
head, looked at him for a moment with comical admiration, and nodded
sagely.

"Hulot was the first instance of love through fire and water," said she;
"this is the second. But it ought not to count, as it comes from the
Tropics."

Montes had dropped into his chair again, when Josepha gently touched his
forehead, and looked at du Tillet as he said:

"If I am the victim of a Paris jest, if you only wanted to get at my
secret----" and he sent a flashing look round the table, embracing all
the guests in a flaming glance that blazed with the sun of Brazil,--"I
beg of you as a favor to tell me so," he went on, in a tone of almost
childlike entreaty; "but do not vilify the woman I love."

"Nay, indeed," said Carabine in a low voice; "but if, on the contrary,
you are shamefully betrayed, cheated, tricked by Valerie, if I should
give you the proof in an hour, in my own house, what then?"

"I cannot tell you before all these Iagos," said the Brazilian.

Carabine understood him to say _magots_ (baboons).

"Well, well, say no more!" she replied, smiling. "Do not make yourself
a laughing-stock for all the wittiest men in Paris; come to my house, we
will talk it over."

Montes was crushed. "Proofs," he stammered, "consider--"

"Only too many," replied Carabine; "and if the mere suspicion hits you
so hard, I fear for your reason."

"Is this creature obstinate, I ask you? He is worse than the late
lamented King of Holland!--I say, Lousteau, Bixiou, Massol, all the crew
of you, are you not invited to breakfast with Madame Marneffe the day
after to-morrow?" said Leon de Lora.

"_Ya_," said du Tillet; "I have the honor of assuring you, Baron, that
if you had by any chance thought of marrying Madame Marneffe, you are
thrown out like a bill in Parliament, beaten by a blackball called
Crevel. My friend, my old comrade Crevel, has eighty thousand francs a
year; and you, I suppose, did not show such a good hand, for if you had,
you, I imagine, would have been preferred."

Montes listened with a half-absent, half-smiling expression, which
struck them all