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These adventures were told to me in the old days by Arsène Lupin, as
though they had happened to a friend of his, named Prince Rénine. As for
me, considering the way in which they were conducted, the actions, the
behaviour and the very character of the hero, I find it very difficult not
to identify the two friends as one and the same person. Arsène Lupin is
gifted with a powerful imagination and is quite capable of attributing to
himself adventures which are not his at all and of disowning those which
are really his. The reader will judge for himself.
M. L.
Hortense Daniel pushed her window ajar and whispered:
"Are you there, Rossigny?"
"I am here," replied a voice from the shrubbery at the front of the house.
Leaning forward, she saw a rather fat man looking up at her out of a gross
red face with its cheeks and chin set in unpleasantly fair whiskers.
"Well?" he asked.
"Well, I had a great argument with my uncle and aunt last night. They
absolutely refuse to sign the document of which my lawyer sent them the
draft, or to restore the dowry squandered by my husband."
"But your uncle is responsible by the terms of the marriage-settlement."
"No matter. He refuses."
"Well, what do you propose to do?"
"Are you still determined to run away with me?" she asked, with a laugh.
"More so than ever."
"Your intentions are strictly honourable, remember!"
"Just as you please. You know that I am madly in love with you."
"Unfortunately I am not madly in love with you!"
"Then what made you choose me?"
"Chance. I was bored. I was growing tired of my humdrum existence. So I'm
ready to run risks.... Here's my luggage: catch!"
She let down from the window a couple of large leather kit-bags. Rossigny
caught them in his arms.
"The die is cast," she whispered. "Go and wait for me with your car at the
If cross-roads. I shall come on horseback."
"Hang it, I can't run off with your horse!"
"He will go home by himself."
"Capital!... Oh, by the way...."
"What is it?"
"Who is this Prince Rénine, who's been here the last three days and whom
nobody seems to know?"
"I don't know much about him. My uncle met him at a friend's shoot and
asked him here to stay."
"You seem to have made a great impression on him. You went for a long ride
with him yesterday. He's a man I don't care for."
"In two hours I shall have left the house in your company. The scandal will
cool him off.... Well, we've talked long enough. We have no time to lose."
For a few minutes she stood watching the fat man bending under the weight
of her traps as he moved away in the shelter of an empty avenue. Then she
closed the window.
Outside, in the park, the huntsmen's horns were sounding the reveille. The
hounds burst into frantic baying. It was the opening day of the hunt that
morning at the Château de la Marèze, where, every year, in the first week
in September, the Comte d'Aigleroche, a mighty hunter before the Lord,
and his countess were accustomed to invite a few personal friends and the
neighbouring landowners.
Hortense slowly finished dressing, put on a riding-habit, which
revealed the lines of her supple figure, and a wide-brimmed felt hat,
which encircled her lovely face and auburn hair, and sat down to her
writing-desk, at which she wrote to her uncle, M. d'Aigleroche, a farewell
letter to be delivered to him that evening. It was a difficult letter to
word; and, after beginning it several times, she ended by giving up the
idea.
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