head was a
student's cap. He wasn't a gentleman! Madame was laying the whip to her
imagination, trying to be at ease, her red lips dry and her eyes growing
bloodshot.

The servant was dismissed--it was like throwing over sand ballast from a
balloon. Things grew less tense.

They looked at each other and laughed. "Let's make the best of it," said
Balzac. Then they kissed there under the trees and he held her hands.
They understood each other. They laughed together, and all
disappointment was dissipated in the laugh. They understood each other.

Balzac wrote home to his sister that night about the meeting, and
described the promenade as "a waddle Du Faubourg--a duck and a goose out
for the air." He insisted, however, that Madame was very pretty, very
wise and very rich.

The next day Balzac called at the villa and met Monsieur Hanska, and
evidently won that gentleman's good-will at once. Balzac made him laugh,
exorcising his megrims. Then Balzac played cards with him and obligingly
lost. Hanska insisted that the great author should come back to dinner.
Balzac agreed with him absolutely in politics, and as token of their
friendship Monsieur Hanska presented Monsieur Balzac a gigantic
inkstand.

Things were moving along smoothly, when two letters dispatched to Madame
by Balzac were placed in the hands of Monsieur Hanska by a servant who
evidently lacked the psychic instinct. An hour later, Balzac appeared
in person, and when frigidly shown the letters explained that it was all
a joke--that the letters were literature, to be used in a book, and were
sent to Madame for her inspection, delectation and divertisement.

The very extravagance of the missives saved the day. Monsieur Hanska
could not possibly believe that any one could love his wife in this
intense fashion--he never had. People only get love-crazy in books.

Everybody laughed, and Monsieur Hanska ordered the waiter to bring in
bottles of the juice of the grape, and all went as merry as a
marriage-bell.

Five days of paradise, and the Hanskas went one way and Balzac went
another. He was up before daylight the morning they were to go, pacing
the Faubourg in the hope of catching just one more look at the object of
his passion. But his quest was in vain--he took the diligence back to
Paris, and duly arrived, tired and sore in body, but with a heart for
work. Madame Hanska understood him--was that not enough?

* * * * *

After