eart already, and that he has
offered her his hand? Yes," he added, observing the effect which his
words produced even on the stolid countenance of the major-domo. "Yes,
and what would you say if I told you that madame the baroness, who had
set her heart on the union of the cousins, has discovered all this and
has appealed to monsieur the marquis himself about it?"

Monsieur Perigord could only stare at the speaker in amazement, while,
strange to say, M. Boulederouloue, with whom astonishment was an
habitual and chronic state, was able to exclaim, "The world is coming
to an end!"

"Absurd, ridiculous, preposterous, impossible!" cried Perigord at last,
with a vehement sweep of his hand which sent a decanter and a couple of
wine glasses flying off the table. "Monsieur Jasmin, your powers of
invention are wonderful indeed, but I am not such a fool as to believe
all this. How could you know it even if it were all true? Answer me
that, my friend--answer me that!"

"But I am fool enough to believe what I know to be true," retorted the
valet, forgetting his habitual caution in his irritation at M.
Perigord's incredulity. "And if you wish to know how I learnt all
this, permit me to inform you that madame the baroness herself was so
obliging as to make me acquainted with it at interviews with which she
favoured me. I can tell you more," he added, provoked by the scornful
smile with which M. Perigord received these last words, and thereupon
he gave forth, with a volubility that would have done no discredit to
old Perigord himself, a tolerably full account of all he knew or had
gathered from others respecting the affair, concluding with a
supercilious intimation that he had now at madame's request taken the
matter in hand, and would soon set all to rights.

"Ah, no doubt--no doubt! Madame could not have chosen a more able
person for the business," cried M. Perigord, suppressing the
indignation that boiled within him by an effort which could scarcely
have deceived the wily valet had he been sober. "I was a fool indeed
to suppose that my good friend could be mistaken in his surmises; but
then I could not know that he was honoured with the confidence of
madame the baroness. And yet it is a weighty matter--a maze of
difficulties, a labyrinth of conflicting circumstances. If
Mademoiselle Clotilde does not care for Monsieur Isidore after all, and
he loves Mademoiselle Marguerite, and has actually plighted his word to
her