have no other place of residence than that which
you may happen to have. As you, therefore, are staying at Fontainebleau
at the present moment, I have come to Fontainebleau."

Montalais shrugged her shoulders. "You wished to see me, did you not?"
she said.

"Of course."

"Very well, you have seen me,--you are satisfied; so now go away."

"Oh, no," said Malicorne; "I came to talk with you as well as to see
you."

"Very well, we will talk by and by, and in another place than this."

"By and by! Heaven only knows if I shall meet you by and by in another
place. We shall never find a more favorable one than this."

"But I cannot this evening, nor at the present moment."

"Why not?"

"Because a thousand things have happened to-night."

"Well, then, my affair will make a thousand and one."

"No, no; Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente is waiting for me in our room
to communicate something of the very greatest importance."

"How long has she been waiting?"

"For an hour at least."

"In that case," said Malicorne, tranquilly, "she can wait a few minutes
longer."

"Monsieur Malicorne," said Montalais, "you are forgetting yourself."

"You should rather say that it is you who are forgetting me, and that I
am getting impatient at the part you make me play here indeed! For the
last week I have been prowling about among the company, and you have not
once deigned to notice my presence."

"Have you been prowling about here for a week, M. Malicorne?"

"Like a wolf; sometimes I have been burnt by the fireworks, which
have singed two of my wigs; at others, I have been completely
drenched in the osiers by the evening damps, or the spray from the
fountains,--half-famished, fatigued to death, with the view of a wall
always before me, and the prospect of having to scale it perhaps. Upon
my word, this is not the sort of life for any one to lead who is
neither a squirrel, a salamander, nor an otter; and since you drive your
inhumanity so far as to wish to make me renounce my condition as a man,
I declare it openly. A man I am, indeed, and a man I will remain, unless
by superior orders."

"Well, then, tell me, what do you wish,--what do you require,--what do
you insist upon?" said Montalais, in a submissive tone.

"Do you mean to tell me that you did not know I was at Fontainebleau?"

"I?"

"Nay, be frank."

"I suspected so."

"Well, then, could you not have contrived during the last week to have
seen me once a day, at