orward with hands outstretched
and a sad smile upon her lips.

"Yvonne!" The Chevalier's voice rang out sharp and sudden.

She stopped.

"I forbid you to approach that man!"

For a moment she appeared to hesitate; then, leisurely pursuing her way,
she set her hands upon her brother's shoulders and embraced him.

The Chevalier swore through set teeth; Genevieve trembled, Andrea looked
askance, and I laughed softly at the Chevalier's discomfiture. Eugene
flung his hat and cloak into a corner and strode across the room to
where his father stood.

"And now, Monsieur, since I have travelled all the way from Paris to
save my house from a step that will bring it into the contempt of all
France, I shall not go until you have heard me."

The Chevalier shrugged his shoulders and made as if to turn away.
Yvonne's greeting of her brother appeared to have quenched the spark of
spirit that for a moment had glimmered in the little man's breast.

"Monsieur," cried Eugene, "believe me that what I have to say is of the
utmost consequence, and say it I will--whether before these strangers or
in your private ear shall be as you elect."

The old man glanced about him like one who seeks a way of escape. At
last--"If say it you must," he growled, "say it here and now. And when
you have said it, go."

Eugene scowled at me, and from me to Andrea. To pay him for that scowl,
I had it in my mind to stay; but, overcoming the clownish thought, I
took Andrea by the arm.

"Come, Andrea," I said, "we will take a turn outside while these family
matters are in discussion."

I had a shrewd idea what was the substance of Eugene's mission to
Canaples--to expostulate with his father touching the proposed marriage
of Yvonne to the Cardinal's nephew.

Nor was I wrong, for when, some moments later, the Chevalier recalled us
from the terrace, where we were strolling--"What think you he has come
hither to tell me?" he inquired as we entered. He pointed to his son
as he spoke, and passion shook his slender frame as the breeze shakes a
leaf. Mademoiselle and Genevieve sat hand in hand--Yvonne deadly pale,
Genevieve weeping.

"What think you he has the effrontery to say? Tetedieu! it seems that he
has profited little by the lesson you read him in the horse-market about
meddling in matters which concern him not. He has come hither to tell me
that he will not permit his sister to wed the Cardinal's nephew; that he
will not have the estates of Canaple