s the woman?"

Jean reddened more furiously and was more confused than before.

"It can't be this--this"--he regarded the slender, girlish figure
contemptuously--"this grisette menagere! You are not such a fool as
to----"

"Oh! no, no, no, no!" hastily interrupted Mlle. Fouchette, with great
agitation. "Oh, no, monsieur! Think not that! She is an angel! I am
nothing to him,--nothing! Only a poor little friend,--a servant,
monsieur,--one who wishes him well and would do and give anything to
see him happy! Nothing more, monsieur, I assure you! I--mon Dieu!
nothing more!"

There was almost a wail in her last note of too much protestation.

Both father and son scrutinized her attentively, while the color came
and went in her now downcast face,--the one with a puzzled
astonishment, the other with surprised alarm.

And both understood.

Not being himself a lover, the elder Marot divined at once what Jean,
with all his opportunities, had till now failed to discover.

Another pull at the bell came like a gift from heaven to momentarily
relieve poor little Fouchette of her embarrassment.

Jean started nervously to his feet, in sympathy with her intelligence,
but by no means relieved in mind.

"It is Lerouge," he said, desperately. "Attend, Fouchette!"

The father glanced from one to the other quickly, inquiringly.

"Lerouge?"

"Yes, father,--it is he,--the friend--whom we--whom I expect--to whom
I owe reparation----"

The two men studied each other in silence for the few seconds that
followed, and Jean saw something like aroused curiosity and wonderment
in his father's face,--something that had suddenly taken the place of
anger.

Mlle. Fouchette had anticipated the coming of Lerouge with quite a
different sentiment to that which overpowered Jean. The latter saw in
it only the ruin of his most cherished hopes. Fouchette, on the other
hand, with the quicker and surer intuition of the woman, believed the
time now ripe for the reconciliation of not only Jean and Lerouge, but
of father and son. It would be impossible for Jean and his father to
quarrel before this third party. Time would be gained. And then, were
not the two affairs one? The straightening out of the tangle between
the friends must carry with it the better understanding between Jean
and his father.

As to herself, the girl had not one thought. She was completely lifted
out of self,--carried away with the intentness of her solicitude for
Jean's fut