hope that she
will overcome her unjust prejudices. Therefore I shall persist."

Maxence insisted no more. He was irritated at M. Costeclar's
coolness; but it was not his intention to push things further.

"There will always be time," he thought, "to resort to violent
measures."

But when he reported this conversation to his sister,

"It is clear," he said, "that, between our father and that man,
there is a community of interests which I am unable to discover.
What business have they together? In what respect can your marriage
either help or injure them? I must see, try and find out exactly
who is this Costeclar: the deuse take him!"

He started out the same day, and had not far to go.

M. Costeclar was one of those personalities which only bloom in
Paris, and are only met in Paris,--the same as cab-horses, and
young ladies with yellow chignons.

He knew everybody, and everybody knew him.

He was well known at the bourse, in all the principal restaurants,
where he called the waiters by their first names, at the box-office
of the theatres, at all the pool-rooms, and at the European Club,
otherwise called the Nomadic Club, of which he was a member.

He operated at the bourse: that was sure. He was said to own a
third interest in a stock-broker's office. He had a good deal of
business with M. Jottras, of the house of Jottras and Brother, and
M. Saint Pavin, the manager of a very popular journal, "The Financial
Pilot."

It was further known that he had on Rue Vivienne, a magnificent
apartment, and that he had successively honored with his liberal
protection Mlle. Sidney of the Varieties, and Mme. Jenny Fancy, a
lady of a certain age already, but so situated as to return to her
lovers in notoriety what they gave her in good money. So much did
Maxence learn without difficulty. As to any more precise details,
it was impossible to obtain them. To his pressing questions upon
M. Costeclar's antecedents,

"He is a perfectly honest man," answered some.

"He is simply a speculator," affirmed others.

But all agreed that he was a sharp one; who would surely make his
fortune, and without passing through the police-courts, either.

"How can our father and such a man be so intimately connected?"
wondered Maxence and his sister.

And they were lost in conjectures, when suddenly, at an hour when
he never set his foot in the house, M. Favoral appeared.

Throwing a letter upon his daughter's lap,

"See what I