"Fanny and her husband didn't want it to become known, and she made me promise not to mention it to you."
"But tell me whom Auguste did fight with?"
"With a man who was drunk, and who didn't know what he was saying—that's the whole of it. And Auguste didn't attach the slightest importance to it."
"Very good! I hope he didn't; but I am convinced, none the less, that Gustave was mixed up in it in some way, and I repeat what I have said to you before: that young man must never come here again!—Good-night, my dear!"
"Good-night, father!"
Adolphine retired to her own room; the two appointments with her father, solicited by two men who had persecuted her with their attentions during the evening, caused her a vague feeling of uneasiness; a secret presentiment told her that she would be the subject of the interviews to be held on the morrow, and she was impatient to know whether her fears were justified.
The next day, Adolphine did not leave her room, in order to avoid meeting the two gentlemen who had appointments with her father. At precisely eleven o'clock she heard the bell, and honest Madeleine came and said to her:
"It's the tall young man who sang with you last night, mamzelle; he asked for monsieur your father, and he's with him now."
"Very well, Madeleine; if he should happen to ask for me, you must tell him that I have a headache and cannot leave my room."
"I understand, mamzelle."