a smile, which said, "I promised you as much!" shot across the room,
and brought a blush of hope to the pale cheeks of the young creature
languishing under the great chandelier. The alliance between Madame de
Lansac and the stranger could not escape the practised eye of the
Comtesse de Vaudremont, who scented a mystery, and was determined to
penetrate it.

At this instant the Baron de la Roche-Hugon, after questioning all the
dowagers without success as to the blue lady's name, applied in
despair to the Comtesse de Gondreville, from whom he reached only this
unsatisfactory reply, "A lady whom the 'ancient' Duchesse de Lansac
introduced to me."

Turning by chance towards the armchair occupied by the old lady, the
lawyer intercepted the glance of intelligence she sent to the
stranger; and although he had for some time been on bad terms with
her, he determined to speak to her. The "ancient" Duchess, seeing the
jaunty Baron prowling round her chair, smiled with sardonic irony, and
looked at Madame de Vaudremont with an expression that made Montcornet
laugh.

"If the old witch affects to be friendly," thought the Baron, "she is
certainly going to play me some spiteful trick.--Madame," he said,
"you have, I am told, undertaken the charge of a very precious
treasure."

"Do you take me for a dragon?" said the old lady. "But of whom are you
speaking?" she added, with a sweetness which revived Martial's hopes.

"Of that little lady, unknown to all, whom the jealousy of all these