better pleased that you are so much her friend."

"But she has not the slightest idea how much I _am_ her friend. That is
precisely the point I cannot teach her. May I inquire did she ever
speak of me to you?"

"Under the name of 'Isidore' she has talked about you often; but I must
add that it is only within the last ten minutes I have discovered that
you and 'Isidore' are identical. It is only, Dr. John, within that
brief space of time I have learned that Ginevra Fanshawe is the person,
under this roof, in whom you have long been interested--that she is the
magnet which attracts you to the Rue Fossette, that for her sake you
venture into this garden, and seek out caskets dropped by rivals."

"You know all?"

"I know so much."

"For more than a year I have been accustomed to meet her in society.
Mrs. Cholmondeley, her friend, is an acquaintance of mine; thus I see
her every Sunday. But you observed that under the name of 'Isidore' she
often spoke of me: may I--without inviting you to a breach of
confidence--inquire what was the tone, what the feeling of her remarks?
I feel somewhat anxious to know, being a little tormented with
uncertainty as to how I stand with her."

"Oh, she varies: she shifts and changes like the wind."

"Still, you can gather some general idea--?"

"I can," thought I, "but it would not do to communicate that general
idea to you. Besides, if I said she did not love you, I know you would
not believe me."

"You are silent," he pursued. "I suppose you have no good news to
impart. No matter. If she feels for me positive coldness and aversion,
it is a sign I do not deserve her."

"Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of
Colonel de Hamal?"

"I love Miss Fanshawe far more than de Hamal loves any human being, and
would care for and guard her better than he. Respecting de Hamal, I
fear she is under an illusion; the man's character is known to me, all
his antecedents, all his scrapes. He is not worthy of your beautiful
young friend."

"My 'beautiful young friend' ought to know that, and to know or feel
who is worthy of her," said I. "If her beauty or her brains will not
serve her so far, she merits the sharp lesson of experience."

"Are you not a little severe?"

"I am excessively severe--more severe than I choose to show you. You
should hear the strictures with which I favour my 'beautiful young
friend,' only that you would be unutterably shocked at my want of
tende