“My dear woman,” said the chief, “did you never hear that in 1617 a learned man was put to death for having a toad in a bottle?”

“Yes, I know that; but we are not in those light ages,” replied Madame Fontaine, facetiously.

“As for you, Madame Nourrisson, the complaint is that you gather your fruit unripe.  You ought to know by this time the laws and regulations, and I warn you that everything under twenty-one years of age is forbidden.  I wonder I have to remind you of it.  Now, aunt, what I have to say to you is confidential.”

Thus dismissed, two of the Fates departed.

Since the days when Jacques Collin had abdicated his former kingship and had made himself, as they say, a new skin in the police force, Jacqueline Collin, though she had never put herself within reach of the law, had certainly never donned the robe of innocence.  But having attained, like her nephew, to what might fairly be called opulence, she kept at a safe and respectful distance from the Penal Code, and under cover of an agency that was fairly avowable, she sheltered practices more or less shady, on which she continued to bestow an intelligence and an activity that were really infernal.

“Aunt,” said Vautrin, “I have so many things to say to you that I don’t know where to begin.”

“I should think so!  It is a week since I’ve seen you.”

“In the first place, I must tell you that I have just missed a splendid chance.”

“What sort of chance?” asked Jacqueline.

“In the line of my odious calling.  But this time the capture was worth making.  Do you remember that little Prussian engraver about whom I sent you to Berlin?”

“The one who forged those Vienna bank bills in that wonderful way?”

“Yes.  I just missed arresting him near Saint-Sulpice.  But I followed him into the church, where I heard your Signora Luigia.”

“Ah!” said Jacqueline, “she has made up her mind at last, and has left that imbecile of a sculptor.”

“It is about her that I have come to talk to you,” said Vautrin.  “Here are the facts.  The Italian opera season in London has begun badly, —­their prima donna is taken ill.  Sir Francis Drake, the impresario, arrived in Paris yesterday, at the Hotel des Princes, rue de Richelieu, in search of a prima donna, at any rate pro tem.  I have been to see him in the interests of the signora.  Sir Francis Drake is an Englishman, very bald, with a red nose, and long yellow teeth.  He received me with cold politeness, and asked in very good French what my business was.”

“Did you propose to him Luigia?”

“That was what I went for,—­in the character, be it understood, of a Swedish nobleman.  He asked if her talent was known.  ’Absolutely unknown,’ I replied.  ‘It is risky,’ said Sir Francis; ’nevertheless arrange to let me hear her.’  I told him that she was staying with her friend Madame de Saint-Esteve, at whose house I could take the liberty to invite him to dinner.”