when she put me at boarding-school. But what a hurly-burly my life was after that! If you knew what a youth I had, if you knew how premature experience withered my mind, and what confusion there was, in my small girl's brain, between what was and was not forbidden, between reason and folly. Only art, which was constantly discussed and eulogized, stood erect in all that ruin, and I took refuge in that. That, perhaps, is why I shall never be anything but an artist, a woman apart from other women, a poor Amazon with her heart held captive under her iron breastplate, rushing into battle like a man, and condemned to live and die like a man."

Why did he not say to her then:

"Beautiful warrior, lay aside your weapons, don the floating robe and the charms of the sex to which you belong. I love you, I entreat you to marry me that you may be happy and may make me happy too."

Ah! this is why. He was afraid that the other, he who was to come to dinner that night, you know, and who remained between them despite his absence, would hear him speak in that strain and would have the right to laugh at him or to pity him for such a fervent outburst.

"At all events, I promise you one thing," she continued, "and that is that if I ever have a daughter, I will try to make a true woman of her and not such a poor abandoned creature as I am. Oh! you know, my good Fairy, I do not mean that for you. You have always been kind to your demon, full of affection and care. Why just look at her, see how pretty she is, how young she looks to-night."

Enlivened by the repast, the lights, and one of those white dresses whose reflection causes wrinkles to disappear, La Crenmitz was leaning back in her chair, holding on a level with her half-closed eyes a glass of Château-Yquem from the cellar of their neighbor the Moulin-Rouge; and her little pink face, her airy pastel-like costume reflected in the golden wine, which loaned to it its sparkling warmth, recalled the former heroine of the dainty suppers after the play, the Crenmitz of the good old days, not an audacious hussy after the style of our modern operatic stars, but entirely unaffected and nestling contentedly in her splendor like a fine pearl in its mother-of-pearl shell. Felicia, who was certainly determined to be agreeable to everybody that evening, led her thoughts to the chapter of reminiscences, made her describe once more her triumphs in Giselle and in the Péri, and the ovations from the audience, the visit of the princes to her dressing-room, and Queen Amélie's gift, accompanied by such charming words. The evocation of those glorious scenes intoxicated the poor Fairy, her eyes shone, they could hear her little feet moving restlessly under the table as if seized by a dancing frenzy. And, indeed, when the dinner was at an end and they had returned to the studio, Constance began to pace back and forth, to describe a dance-step or a pirouette, talking all the time, interrupting herself to hum an air from some ballet to which she kept time with her head, then suddenly gathered herself together and with one leap was at the other end of the studio.

"Now she's off," whispered Felicia to de Géry. "Watch. It will be worth your while, for you are about to see La Crenmitz dance."

It was a fascinating, fairy-like spectacle. Against the background of the enormous room, drowned in shadow and hardly lighted save through the round window from without, where the moon was climbing upward in a deep blue sky, a typical operatic sky, the famous dancer's figure stood out all white, a light, airy unsubstantial ghost, flying, rather than springing, through the air; then, standing upon her slender toes, upheld in the air by naught but her outstretched arms, her face raised in a fleeting attitude in which nothing was visible but the smile, she came quickly forward toward the light, or receded with little jerky steps, so rapid that one constantly expected to hear the crash of glass and see her glide backward up the slope of the broad moonbeam that shone aslant into the studio. There was one fact that imparted a strange, poetic charm to that fantastic ballet, and that was the absence of music, of every other sound than that of the measured footfalls, whose effect was heightened by the semi-darkness, of that quick, light patter no louder than the fall of the petals from a dahlia, one by one. This lasted for some minutes, then they could tell from the quickening of her breath that she was becoming exhausted.

"Enough, enough! Sit down," said Felicia.

Thereupon the little white ghost lighted on the edge of an armchair and sat there poised and ready to start anew, smiling and panting, until sleep seized upon her, and began to sway and rock her softly to and fro without disturbing her pretty attitude, like a dragon-fly on a willow branch that drags in the water and moves with the current.

As they watched her nodding in the chair, Felicia said:

"Poor little Fairy! that is the best and most serious thing in the way of friendship, protection and guardianship that I have had during my life. That butterfly acted as my godmother. Do you wonder now at the zigzags, the erratic flights of my mind? Lucky for me that I have clung to her."

She added abruptly, with joyful warmth:

"Ah! Minerva, Minerva, I am very glad that you came to-night. You mustn't leave me alone so long again, you see. I need to have an upright mind like yours by my side, to see one true face amid all the masks that surround me. But you're fearfully bourgeois all the same," she added laughingly, "and a provincial to boot. But never mind! you are the man that I most enjoy looking at all the same. And I believe that my liking for you is due mainly to one thing. You remind me of some one who was the dearest friend of my youth, a serious, sensible little creature like yourself, bound fast to the commonplace side of existence, but mingling with it the element of idealism which we artists put aside for the benefit of our work alone. Some things that you say seem to me to come from her lips. You have a mouth built on the same antique model. Is that what makes your words alike? I don't know about that, but you certainly do resemble each other. I'll show you."

As she sat opposite him at the table laden with sketches and albums, she began to draw as she talked, her face bending over the paper, her unmanageable curls shading her shapely little head. She was no longer the beautiful crouching monster, with the frowning anxious face, lamenting her own destiny; but a woman, a true woman, who loves and seeks to charm. Paul forgot all his suspicions then, in presence of such sincerity and grace. He was on the point of speaking, of pleading with her. It was the decisive moment. But the door opened and the little servant appeared. Monsieur le Duc had sent to ask if Mademoiselle were still suffering from her sick headache.

"Just as much as ever," she said testily.

When the servant had gone, there was a moment's silence between them, a freezing pause. Paul had risen. She went on with her sketch, her head still bent.

He walked away a few steps, then returned to the table and asked gently, astonished to find that he was so calm:

"Was it the Duc de Mora who was to dine here?"

"Yes—I was bored—a day of spleen. Such days are very bad for me."

"Was the duchess to come?"

"The duchess? No. I don't know her."

"Well, if I were in your place, I would never receive in my house, at my table, a married man whose wife I did not meet in society. You complain of being abandoned; why do you abandon yourself? When one is without reproach, one must keep oneself above suspicion. Do I offend you?"

"No, no, scold me, Minerva. I like your morality. It is