arfare was waged
incessantly between the juvenile aristocrats and the monied damsels
without handles to their names. All recollections of Athenais had faded
from Claire's mind, but hatred was still rife in Mlle. Monlinet's heart;
and when her father, in view of her marriage, bought La Varenne for her,
the chateau was a threatening fortress, whence she might pounce down on
her enemy.

Now she advanced towards Mlle, de Beaulieu when she entered the
drawing-room at Beaulieu and threw her arms round her neck, and boldly
exclaimed, "Ah, my beautiful Claire! How happy am I to see you!"

This young person had wonderfully improved, had become very pretty, and
now paralysed her adversaries by her audacity. She soon contrived to
leave the others, and when alone with Claire informed her she had come
to beg for advice respecting her marriage.

Mlle, de Beaulieu instantly divined what her relatives had been hiding
so carefully, and though she became very pale while Athenais looked at
her in fiendish delight, she determined to die rather than own her love
for Gaston, and exerted all her will to master herself. The noise of a
furious gallop resounded, and the Duc de Bligny dashed into the
courtyard on a horse white with foam. He would have entered the
drawing-room, but the baron hindered him, while Maitre Bachelin went to
ask if he might be received.

Claire wore a frightful expression of anger.

"Be kind enough"--she turned to Bachelin--"to ask the duke to go round
to the terrace and wait a moment. Don't bring him in till I make you a
sign from the window; but, in the meantime, send M. Derblay to me."

The marchioness and the baroness immediately improvided a
_mise-en-scene,_ so that when the duke entered, he perceived the
marchioness seated as usual in her easy chair, the baroness standing
near the chimney-piece, and Claire with her back to the light. He bowed
low before the noble woman who had been his second mother.

"Madame la Marquise," he said, "my dear aunt, you see my emotion--my
grief! Claire, I cannot leave this room till you have forgiven me!"

"But you owe me no explanation, duke," Claire said, with amazing
serenity; "and you need no forgiveness. I have been told you intend to
marry. You had the right to do so, it seems to me. Were you not as free
as myself?"

Thereupon, approaching the doorway, she made a sign to Philippe. Athenais
boldly followed the ironmaster.

"I must introduce you to one another, gentlem