re was so little ardour in
this submission that M. Moriaz queried if his daughter had not been
dreaming, if M. Larinski was as much in love with her as she fancied.
He had not read the anonymous letter; Antoinette had refrained from even
mentioning it to him.

He was returning to Saint Moritz, when he met midway a pedestrian, who,
lost in thought, neither looked at him nor recognised him. M. Moriaz
ordered the coachman to stop, sprang out of the carriage, went up to the
traveller whom he seized by both shoulders, exclaiming:

"What, you! you again! I can go nowhere in Grisons without meeting you.
I ask as I did at Chur, 'Where do you come from?'"

"Did you think I would stay there forever?" rejoined M. Camille Langis,
reproachfully. "You have not kept your word, you have forgotten me; you
did not write to me. I am tired of waiting, so here I am."

"And where are you going?"

"To the Hotel Badrutt, to plead my own cause, because my advocate has
failed me."

"Ah! you have chosen an excellent time," cried M. Moriaz; "you have
a real genius for arriving in season. Go, hurry, plead, moan, weep,
entreat; you will be well received; you can come and tell me all about
it."

"What do you mean?" asked Camille; "is it all over? Have you spoken, and
did she silence you?"

"Not at all; she listened to me, without enthusiasm, it is true, but
with attention and deference, when suddenly--Ah! my poor friend, how can
it be helped? This sad world is full of accidents and Poles."

M. Langis looked at him in amazement, as if to ask for an explanation.
M. Moriaz continued: "Do yourself justice. You are the most honest
fellow upon earth, I grant; you are a charming man, and an engineer of
the highest merit. But, unfortunately, there is no mystery of blood
and tears in your existence; you are perfectly unpretending, frank,
unaffected, and as transparent as crystal; in short, you are not a
stranger. Had you a delicate, blond, and romantic mother, and do you
wear her portrait on your heart? have you unfathomable green eyes? have
you adventures to relate? have you visited California? have you swept
the streets of San Francisco? have you exchanged bullets with the
Cossacks? have you been killed in three combats and in ten skirmishes?
I fear you have not even thought of dying once. Have you tried all
professions, without succeeding in one? have you invented a gun which
burst? and, above all, are you as poor as a church-mouse? What! is it