iction that the Bourbons' hour had not yet arrived. He
feigned blindness, working as hitherto for the triumph of Legitimacy,
and still remaining at the orders of the clergy and nobility, though
from the very first day he had penetrated Pierre's new course of action,
and believed that Felicite was his accomplice.

One evening, being the first to arrive, he found the old lady alone
in the drawing-room. "Well! little one," he asked, with his smiling
familiarity, "are your affairs going on all right? Why the deuce do you
make such mysteries with me?"

"I'm not hiding anything from you," Felicite replied, somewhat
perplexed.

"Come, do you think you can deceive an old fox like me, eh? My dear
child, treat me as a friend. I'm quite ready to help you secretly. Come
now, be frank!"

A bright idea struck Felicite. She had nothing to tell; but perhaps she
might find out something if she kept quiet.

"Why do you smile?" Monsieur de Carnavant resumed. "That's the beginning
of a confession, you know. I suspected that you must be behind your
husband. Pierre is too stupid to invent the pretty treason you are
hatching. I sincerely hope the Bonapartists will give you what I should
have asked for you from the Bourbons."

This single sentence confirmed the suspicions which the old woman had
entertained for some time past.

"Prince Louis has every chance, hasn't he?" she eagerly inquired.

"Will you betray me if I tell you that I believe so?" the marquis
laughingly replied. "I've donned my mourning over it, little one. I'm
simply a poor old man, worn out and only fit to be laid on the shelf.
It was for you, however, that I was working. Since you have been able to
find the right track without me, I shall feel some consolation in seeing
you triumph amidst my own defeat. Above all things, don't make any more
mysteries. Come to me if you are ever in trouble."

And he added, with the sceptical smile of a nobleman who has lost caste:
"Pshaw! I also can go in for a little treachery!"

At this moment the clan of retired oil and almond dealers arrived.

"Ah! the dear reactionaries!" Monsieur de Carnavant continued in an
undertone. "You see, little one, the great art of politics consists in
having a pair of good eyes when other people are blind. You hold all the
best cards in the pack."

On the following day, Felicite, incited by this conversation, desired
to make sure on the matter. They were then in the first days of the year
1851.