iety of a scandal in high
life. The fruitless, ineffaceable stain, the senseless fall into the
gutter of a woman who cannot walk, and upon whom the ironical pity of
the passers-by weighs heavily when she tries to rise.

For a moment she contemplated suicide, but was deterred by the thought
that it might be attributed to despairing love. She saw in anticipation
the sentimental emotion of the salons, the absurd figure that her
supposed passion would cut amid the duke's innumerable conquests, and
upon her grave, dug so near the other, the Parma violets, stripped of
their petals by the dandified Moessards of journalism. There remained
the resource of travel, one of those journeys to countries so distant
that they expatriate even the thoughts. Unluckily, she lacked money.
Thereupon she remembered that, on the day following her success at the
Salon, old Brahim Bey had come to see her, to make magnificent proposals
to her in his master's name for divers great works to be executed at
Tunis. She had said no at the moment, refusing to be tempted by Oriental
prices, by a munificent hospitality, by the promise of the finest
courtyard on the Bardo for a studio, surrounded by arches carved like
exquisite lace. But now she was willing to accept. She had but to make a
sign, the bargain was concluded at once, and after an exchange of
despatches, a hasty packing-up, and closing the house, she started for
the railway-station as if she were going away for a week, surprised
herself by her prompt decision, pleased in all the adventurous and
artistic portions of her nature by the prospect of a new life in a
strange land.

The bey's pleasure yacht was to await her at Genoa; and, closing her
eyes in the cab, she saw in anticipation the white stones of an Italian
harbor enclosing an iridescent sea, where the sunlight had a gleam of
the Orient, where everything sang joyously, even to the swelling sails
upon the deep. It so happened that on that day Paris was muddy and
murky, drowned by one of those continuous downpours of rain which seem
to have been made for it alone, to have ascended in clouds from its
river, its steam, its monster breath, only to descend again in streams
from its roofs, its gutters, the innumerable windows of its attics.
Felicia was in haste to escape from that depressing Paris, and her
feverish impatience vented itself upon the driver for not driving
faster, upon the horses,--two genuine broken-down cab-horses,--and upon
an