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she repeated, a little unnerved by waiting.
    He was silent. He looked at the beautiful lips, which he had meant to claim as his reward. He felt perfectly certain that Hortense had understood, and he thought it unnecessary to speak more plainly:
    “The mere delight of seeing you will be enough to satisfy me. It is not for me but for you to impose conditions. Name them: what do you demand?”
    She was grateful for his respect and said, laughingly:
    “What do I demand?”
    “Yes.”
    “Can I demand anything I like, however difficult and impossible?”
    “Everything is easy and everything is possible to the man who is bent on winning you.”
    Then she said:
    “I demand that you shall restore to me a small, antique clasp, made of a cornelian set in a silver mount. It came to me from my mother, and everyone knew that it used to bring her happiness and me too. Since the day when it vanished from my jewel case, I have had nothing but unhappiness. Restore it to me, my good genius.”
    “When was the clasp stolen?”
    She answered gaily:
    “Seven years ago … or eight … or nine; I don’t know exactly … I don’t know where … I don’t know how … I know nothing about it …”
    “I will find it,” Rénine declared, “and you shall be happy.” 
 

II. THE WATER BOTTLE
    Four days after she had settled down in Paris, Hortense Daniel agreed to meet Prince Rénine in the Bois. It was a glorious morning, and they sat down on the terrace of the Restaurant Impérial, a little to one side.
    Hortense, feeling glad to be alive, was in a playful mood, full of attractive grace. Rénine, lest he should startle her, refrained from alluding to the compact into which they had entered at his suggestion. She told him how she had left La Marèze and said that she had not heard from Rossigny.
    “I have,” said Rénine. “I’ve heard from him.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes, he sent me a challenge. We fought a duel this morning. Rossigny got a scratch in the shoulder. That finished the duel. Let’s talk of something else.”
    There was no further mention of Rossigny. Rénine at once expounded to Hortense the plan of two enterprises which he had in view and in which he offered, with no great enthusiasm, to let her share:
    “The finest adventure,” he declared, “is that which we do not foresee. It comes unexpectedly, unannounced, and no one, save the initiated, realizes that an opportunity to act and to expend one’s energies is close at hand. It has to be seized at once. A moment’s hesitation may mean that we are too late. We are warned by a special sense, like that of a sleuth hound, which distinguishes the right scent from all the others that cross it.”
    The terrace was beginning to fill up around them. At the next table sat a young man reading a newspaper. They were able to see his insignificant profile and his long, dark moustache. From behind them, through an open window of the restaurant, came the distant strains of a band; in one of the rooms, a few couples were dancing.
    As Rénine was paying for the refreshments, the young man with the long moustache stifled a cry and, in a choking voice, called one of the waiters:
    “What do I owe you? … No change? Oh, good Lord, hurry up!”
    Rénine, without a moment’s hesitation, had picked up the paper. After casting a swift glance down the page, he read, under his breath:
    “Maître Dourdens, the counsel for the defence in the trial of Jacques Aubrieux, has been received at the Élysée. We are informed that the President of the Republic has refused to reprieve the condemned man and that the execution will take place tomorrow morning.”
    After crossing the terrace, the young man found himself faced, at the entrance to the garden, by a lady and gentleman who blocked his way, and the latter said:
    “Excuse me, sir, but I noticed your agitation. It’s about Jacques Aubrieux, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, yes, Jacques Aubrieux,” the young man stammered. “Jacques, the friend of my