Arsenal.

Pompadour and Brigaud cried out against the imprudence of such a
meeting. Madame de Maine was evidently watched. To go to the Arsenal the
day when they must know that she was the most irritated would be to
compromise themselves openly. Pompadour and Brigaud were therefore in
favor of going and begging her highness to appoint some other time or
place for the rendezvous. Malezieux and D'Harmental were of the same
opinion regarding the danger of the step; but they both declared--the
first from devotion, the second from a sense of duty--that the more
perilous the order was, the more honorable it would be to obey it.

The discussion, as always happens in similar circumstances, began to
degenerate into a pretty sharp altercation, when they heard the steps of
two persons mounting the stairs. As the three individuals who had
appointed a meeting at D'Harmental's were all assembled, Brigaud, who,
with his ear always on the qui-vive had heard the sound first, put his
finger to his mouth, to impose silence on the disputants. They could
plainly hear the steps approaching; then a low whispering, as of two
people questioning; finally, the door opened, and gave entrance to a
soldier of the French guard, and a little grisette.

The guardsman was the Baron de Valef.

As to the grisette, she threw off the little black veil which hid her
face, and they recognized Madame de Maine.

CHAPTER XXXV.

MAN PROPOSES.

"Your highness! your highness at my lodging!" cried D'Harmental. "What
have I done to merit such an honor?"

"The hour is come, chevalier," said the duchess, "when it is right that
we should show people the opinion we hold of their merits. It shall
never be said that the friends of Madame de Maine expose themselves for
her, and that she does not expose herself with them. Thank God, I am the
granddaughter of the great Conde, and I feel that I am worthy of my
ancestor."

"Your highness is most welcome," said Pompadour; "for your arrival will
get us out of a difficulty. Decided, as we were, to obey your orders, we
nevertheless hesitated at the idea of the danger incurred by an assembly
at the Arsenal, at such a moment as the present, when the police have
their eyes upon it."

"And I thought with you, marquis; so, instead of waiting for you, I
resolved to come and seek you. The baron accompanied me. I went to the
house of the Comtesse de Chavigny, a friend of De Launay's, who lives in
the Rue du Mail. We ha