"Well! since Tourillon is away, I will report the Enghien races. I am going there now. Enghien isn't highly diverting, though. The swells and the pretty women so rarely go there; they don't affect Enghien any more. But duty before everything, eh, Fremin?"
"You will have to hurry," said Fremin, looking at his watch, "or you will miss your train."
"Oh! I have a carriage below."
He clapped his confrere on the shoulder, bowed again to Zilah, and hurried away, while Fremin, turning to the Prince, said:
"I am at your service, Monsieur," and waited for him to open the conversation.
Zilah drew from his pocket the copy of L'Actualite, and said, very quietly:
"I should like to know, Monsieur, who is meant in this article here."
And, folding the paper, with the passage which concerned him uppermost, he handed it to the secretary.
Fremin glanced at the article.
"Yes, I have seen this paragraph," he said; "but I am entirely ignorant to whom it alludes. I am not even certain that it is not a fabrication, invented out of whole cloth."