served in an immense corridor, where, to leave persons of the same
coterie free to meet each other, the tables were arranged as in a
restaurant. By one of those accidents which always happen to lovers,
Mademoiselle de Fontaine found herself at a table next to that at which
the more important guests were seated. Maximilien was of the group.
Emilie, who lent an attentive ear to her neighbors' conversation,
overheard one of those dialogues into which a young woman so easily
falls with a young man who has the grace and style of Maximilien
Longueville. The lady talking to the young banker was a Neapolitan
duchess, whose eyes shot lightning flashes, and whose skin had the sheen
of satin. The intimate terms on which Longueville affected to be with
her stung Mademoiselle de Fontaine all the more because she had just
given her lover back twenty times as much tenderness as she had ever
felt for him before.

"Yes, monsieur, in my country true love can make every kind of
sacrifice," the Duchess was saying, in a simper.

"You have more passion than Frenchwomen," said Maximilien, whose burning
gaze fell on Emilie. "They are all vanity."

"Monsieur," Emilie eagerly interposed, "is it not very wrong to
calumniate your own country? Devotion is to be found in every nation."

"Do you imagine, mademoiselle," retorted the Italian, with a sardonic
smile, "that a Parisian would be capable of following her lover all over
the world?"

"Oh, madame, let us understand each other. She would follow him to a
desert and live in a tent but not to sit in a shop."

A disdainful gesture completed her meaning. Thus, under the influence of
her disastrous education, Emile for the second time killed her budding
happiness, and destroyed its prospects of life. Maximilien's apparent
indifference, and a woman's smile, had wrung from her one of those
sarcasms whose treacherous zest always let her astray.

"Mademoiselle," said Longueville, in a low voice, under cover of the
noise made by the ladies as they rose from the table, "no one will ever
more ardently desire your happiness than I; permit me to assure you
of this, as I am taking leave of you. I am starting for Italy in a few
days."

"With a Duchess, no doubt?"

"No, but perhaps with a mortal blow."

"Is not that pure fancy?" asked Emilie, with an anxious glance.

"No," he replied. "There are wounds which never heal."

"You are not to go," said the girl, imperiously, and she smiled.

"I shall g