“Into court!” echoed la Peyrade; “you surely wouldn’t go to law in such a matter as this?  In the first place, there is nothing to proceed upon; you are not named nor the paper either, and, besides, it is a pitiable business, going to law; you’ll look like a boy who has been fighting, and got the worst of it, and runs to complain to his mamma.  Now if you had said that you meant to make Fleury intervene in the matter, I could understand that—­though the affair is rather personal to you, and it might be difficult to make it seem—­”

“Ah ca!” said Thuillier, “do you suppose I am going to commit myself with a Cerizet or any other newspaper bully?  I pique myself, my dear fellow, on possessing civic courage, which does not give in to prejudices, and which, instead of taking justice into its own hands, has recourse to the means of defence that are provided by law.  Besides, with the legal authority the Court of Cassation now has over duelling, I have no desire to put myself in the way of being expatriated, or spending two or three years in prison.”

“Well,” said la Peyrade, “we’ll talk it over later; here’s your sister, and she would think everything lost if this little matter reached her ears.”

When Brigitte appeared Colleville shouted “Full!” and proceeded to sing the chorus of “La Parisienne.”

“Heavens!  Colleville, how vulgar you are!” cried the tardy one, hastening to cast a stone in the other’s garden to avoid the throwing of one into hers.  “Well, are you all ready?” she added, arranging her mantle before a mirror.  “What o’clock is it? it won’t do to get there before the time, like provincials.”

“Ten minutes to two,” said Colleville; “I go by the Tuileries.”

“Well, then we are just right,” said Brigitte; “it will take about that time to get to the rue Caumartin.  Josephine,” she cried, going to the door of the salon, “we’ll dine at six, therefore be sure you put the turkey to roast at the right time, and mind you don’t burn it, as you did the other day.  Bless me! who’s that?” and with a hasty motion she shut the door, which she had been holding open.  “What a nuisance!  I hope Henri will have the sense to tell him we are out.”

Not at all; Henri came in to say that an old gentleman, with a very genteel air, had asked to be received on urgent business.

“Why didn’t you say we were all out?”

“That’s what I should have done if mademoiselle had not opened the door of the salon so that the gentleman could see the whole family assembled.”

“Oh, yes!” said Brigitte, “you are never in the wrong, are you?”

“What am I to say to him?” asked the man.

“Say,” replied Thuillier, “that I am very sorry not to be able to receive him, but I am expected at a notary’s office about a marriage contract; but that if he could return two hours hence—­”

“I have told him all that,” said Henri, “and he answered that that contract was precisely what he had come about, and that his business concerned you more than himself.”