.

Presently a sound of footsteps was heard in the next room, and a servant
appeared at the door announcing:

"Monsieur de Musadieu."

Olivier Bertin felt a spasm of anger, and when he shook hands with
the Inspector of Fine Arts he had a great desire to take him by the
shoulders and throw him into the street.

Musadieu was full of news; the ministry was about to fall, and there
was a whisper of scandal about the Marquis de Rocdiane. He looked at the
young girl, adding: "I will tell you about that a little later."

The Countess raised her eyes to the clock and saw that it was about to
strike ten.

"It is time to go to bed, my child," she said to her daughter.

Without replying, Annette folded her knitting-work, rolled up her ball
of wool, kissed her mother on the cheeks, gave her hand to the
two gentlemen, and departed quickly, as if she glided away without
disturbing the air as she went.

"Well, what is your scandal?" her mother demanded, as soon as she had
gone.

It appeared that rumor said that the Marquis de Rocdiane, amicably
separated from his wife, who paid to him an allowance that he considered
insufficient, had discovered a sure if singular means to double it.
The Marquise, whom he had had watched, had been surprised _in flagrante
delictu_, and was compelled to buy off, with an increased allowance, the
legal proceedings instituted by the police commissioner.

The Countess listened with curious gaze, her idle hands holding the
interrupted needle-work on her knee.

Bertin, who was still more exasperated by Musadieu's presence since
Annette had gone, was incensed at this recital, and declared, with the
indignation of one who had known of the scandal but did not wish to
speak of it to anyone, that the story was an odious falsehood, one of
those shameful lies which people of their world ought neither to listen
to nor repeat. He appeared greatly wrought up over the matter, as he
stood leaning against the mantelpiece and speaking with the excited
manner of a man disposed to make a personal question of the subject
under discussion.

Rocdiane was his friend, he said; and, though he might be criticised for
frivolity in certain respects, no one could justly accuse him or even
suspect him of any really unworthy action. Musadieu, surprised and
embarrassed, defended himself, tried to explain and to excuse himself.

"Allow me to say," he remarked at last, "that I heard this story just
before I came here, in th