"What dodge? What trap?" asked the duke, anxiously.
"He is trying to make you lose your head and to lead you, by intimidation, to do something which you would refuse to do in cold blood."
"Still, M. Arsène Lupin can hardly hope that I will offer him my daughter's hand!"
"No, but he hopes that you will commit, to put it mildly, a blunder."
"Exactly that blunder which he wants you to commit."
"Then you think, monsieur le préfet ...?"
"I think the best thing you can do, monsieur le duc, is to go home, or, if all this excitement worries you, to run down to the country and stay there quietly, without upsetting yourself."
This conversation only increased the old duke's fears. Lupin appeared to him in the light of a terrible person, who employed diabolical methods and kept accomplices in every sphere of society. Prudence was the watchword.
And life, from that moment, became intolerable. The duke grew more crabbed and silent than ever and denied his door to all his old friends and even to Angélique's three suitors, her Cousins de Mussy, d'Emboise and de Caorches, who were none of them on speaking terms with the others, in consequence of their rivalry, and who were in the habit of calling, turn and turn about, every week.