how my curiosity was excited."

"I can conceive it," said Antonin.

"No, you can _not_ conceive it," said Madame Mollot; "for this knee--"

"Ah! I understand," cried Olivier Vinet, laughing; "the Unknown was
also making his toilet, and you saw his two knees."

"No, no!" cried Madame Mollot; "you are putting incongruities into my
mouth. The stranger was standing up; he held a sponge in his hand
above an immense basin, and--none of your jokes, Monsieur Olivier!--it
wasn't his knee, it was his head! He was washing his bald head; he
hasn't a spear of hair upon it."

"Impudent man!" said Antonin. "He certainly can't have come with ideas
of marriage in that head. Here we must have hair in order to be
married. That's essential."

"I am therefore right in saying that our Unknown visitor must be fifty
years old. Nobody ever takes to a wig before that time of life. After
a time, when his toilet was finished, he opened his window and looked
out; and _then_ he wore a splendid head of black hair. He turned his
eyeglass full on me,--for by that time, I was in my balcony.
Therefore, my dear Cecile, you see for yourself that you can't take
that man for the hero of your romance."

"Why not? Men of fifty are not to be despised, if they are counts,"
said Ernestine.