“No, no!” she answered; “he is her lover!”

“Yet he vows vengeance on her family, while the other one who came on before said, ‘I love Lucie and she loves me!’ Besides, he went off with her father arm in arm. For he certainly is her father, isn’t he⁠—the ugly little man with a cock’s feather in his hat?”

Despite Emma’s explanations, as soon as the recitative duet began in which Gilbert lays bare his abominable machinations to his master Ashton, Charles, seeing the false troth-ring that is to deceive Lucie, thought it was a love-gift sent by Edgar. He confessed, moreover, that he did not understand the story because of the music, which interfered very much with the words.

“What does it matter?” said Emma. “Do be quiet!”

“Yes, but you know,” he went on, leaning against her shoulder, “I like to understand things.”

“Be quiet! be quiet!” she cried impatiently.