Those where
beautiful ladies are to be found, and you stop outside in a state of
ecstasy before the window, where you can see their shadow. Oh! little
one, little one, I shall tell Dom Modeste all about it."

The bolt hit its mark, more truly so even than Chicot had supposed; for
when he began, he did not suspect that the wound had been so deep.

Jacques turned round like a serpent that had been trodden on.

"That is not true," he cried, crimson with shame and anger, "I don't
look at women."

"Yes, yes," pursued Chicot; "on the contrary, there was an exceedingly
pretty woman at the 'Brave Chevalier' when you left it, and you turned
round to look at her again; and I know that you were waiting for her in
the turret, and I know, too, that you spoke to her."

Chicot proceeded by the inductive process.

Jacques could not contain himself any longer.

"I certainty have spoken to her!" he exclaimed; "is it a sin to speak to
women?"

"No, when one does not speak to them of one's own accord, and yielding
to the temptation of Satan."

"Satan has nothing whatever to do with the matter; it was absolutely
necessary that I should speak to that lady, since I was desired to hand
her a letter."

"Desired by Dom Modeste!" cried Chicot.

"Yes, go and complain to him now, if you like."

Chicot, bewildered, and feeling his way as it were in the dark,
perceived, at these words, a gleam of light traversing the obscurity of
his brain.

"Ah!" he said, "I knew it perfectly well."

"What did you know?"

"What you did not wish to tell me."

"I do not tell my own secrets, and, for a greater reason, the secrets of
others."

"Yes, but to me."

"Why should I to you?"

"You should tell them to me because I am a friend of Dom Modeste, and,
for another reason, you should tell them to me because--"

"Well?"

"Because I know beforehand all you could possibly have to tell me."

Jacques looked at Chicot and shook his head with an incredulous smile.

"Very good!" said Chicot, "would you like me to tell you what you do not
wish to tell me?"

"I should indeed."

Chicot made an effort.

"In the first place," he said, "that poor Borromee--"

A dark expression passed across Jacques' face.

"Oh!" said the boy, "if I had been there--"

"Well! if you had been there?"

"The affair would not have turned out as it did."

"Would you have defended him against the Swiss with whom he got into a
quarrel?"

"I would have defended h