"Good girl as much as you wish, but I find that your indulgence for her passes all bounds. I have never been able to pardon her for her dresses which thrust themselves obstinately under the legs of my chair, the odor of patchouli which she spreads around me, and the lackadaisical glances which she passes around the table. One would say, upon my word, that she is not capable of looking at a carafe without casting sheep's eyes at it. But if you love her, such as she is, there is nothing to be said. She left at nine o'clock for her boarding-school; I wished her bon voyage. Ten minutes afterward I shook hands with our friends, we made a rendezvous for the next day, I went out, I wakened my coachman and guess whom I found in my carriage? Crinolina invariabilis with the pastry-cook's servant.
"She placed her finger on her lips. I entered without saying a word, and we started. 'Monsieur Harris,' she said in very good English, by my faith, 'swear to me to renounce your plans against the King of the Mountains.'
"I began to laugh, and she began to weep. She declared that I would be killed; I replied that it was I who would kill the others; she objected to having Hadgi-Stavros killed; I wished to know why; at last, at the end of her eloquence, she cried out, as if in the fifth act of a play: 'He is my father!' Upon that I began to seriously reflect; once in a way does not count. I thought that it might be possible to recover a lost friend without risking two or three others, and I said to the young Palikar:
"'Your father loves you?'
"'More than his life.'
"'He never refuses you anything?'
"'Nothing that is necessary.'
"'And if you should write to him that you wanted M. Hermann Schultz would he send him to you with the message-bearer?'
"'No.'
"'You are absolutely sure of it?'