e at his buttonhole,
showing that he was the knight of more than one foreign order. The other
was an elderly man, with an unmistakable legal air about him. He was
dressed in a quilted dressing-gown, fur-lined shoes, and had on his head
an embroidered cap, most likely the work of the hands of some one dear
to him. He wore a white cravat, and his sight compelled him to use
colored glasses.

"Then, my dear sir," said the younger man, "I may venture to entertain
hopes?"

"Remember, Marquis," returned the other, "that if I were acting alone,
what you require would be at once at your disposal. Unfortunately, I
have others to consult."

"I place myself entirely in your hands," replied the Marquis.

The appearance of the fashionably dressed young man reconciled Paul to
the place in which he was.

"A Marquis!" he murmured; "and the other swell-looking fellow must be M.
Mascarin."

Paul was about to step forward, when Beaumarchef respectfully accosted
the last comer,--

"Who do you think, sir," said he, "I have just seen?"

"Tell me quickly," was the impatient reply.

"Caroline Schimmel; you know who I mean."

"What! the woman who was in the service of the Duchess of Champdoce?"

"Exactly so."

M. Mascarin uttered an exclamation of delight.

"Where is she living now?"

Beaumarchef was utterly overwhelmed by this simple question. For the
first time in his life he had omitted to take a client's address. This
omission made Mascarin so angry that he forgot all his good manners, and
broke out with an oath that would have shamed a London cabman,--

"How could you be such an infernal fool? We have been hunting for this
woman for five months. You knew this as well as I did, and yet, when
chance brings her to you, you let her slip through your fingers and
vanish again."

"She'll be back again, sir; never fear. She won't fling away the money
that she had paid for fees."

"And what do you think that she cares for ten sous or ten francs? She'll
be back when she thinks she will; but a woman who drinks and is off her
head nearly all the year round----"

Inspired by a sudden thought, Beaumarchef made a clutch at his hat.

"She has only just gone," said he; "I can easily overtake her."

But Mascarin arrested his progress.

"You are not a good bloodhound. Take Toto Chupin with you; he is outside
with his chestnuts, and is as fly as they make them. If you catch her
up, don't say a word, but follow her up, and see where