aciously on M. Langis, and pressed his hand affectionately. Mme.
de Lorcy led them into her _salon_, where they talked on indifferent
subjects. Antoinette was waiting for M. Langis's departure to broach the
subject that she had at heart. At the end of twenty minutes, he rose,
but immediately reseated himself. A door had just opened, giving
admittance to Count Abel Larinski.

At the unexpected apparition of Samuel Brohl, the two women changed
colour; the one flushed from the effort that she made to dissimulate her
vexation, the other turned pale from emotion. Samuel Brohl crossed the
_salon_ with deliberate step, without appearing to recognise the person
who was with Mme. de Lorcy. Suddenly he trembled, as if he had been
touched by a torpedo, and, profoundly agitated, almost lost countenance.
Was he as much astonished as he seemed? For some time the Sannois Hill
had become his favourite promenade, and he never went there without
going as far as a certain spot whence he could see the front of a
certain house, the window-shutters of which had remained during two
months as though hermetically sealed. It might be that the evening
before he had found them open. Induction is a scientific process with
which Samuel Brohls are familiar.

He had abundant will and self-control. He was not long in recovering
himself; he raised his head like one who feels himself strong enough to
defy all dangers. After greeting Mme. de Lorcy, he drew near Antoinette,
and asked how she was, in a grave, almost ceremonious tone.

"Your visit distresses me, my dear count," said Mme. de Lorcy to him; "I
fear it is the last. Have you come to bid us farewell?"

"Alas! yes, madame," he replied. "The letter for which I have been
waiting has not yet arrived; but this delay will not alter my plans: in
three days I shall leave Paris."

"Without a desire to return, without regret?" she asked.

"I shall only regret Maisons, and the kind reception I have received
there. Paris is too large; little people like myself feel their
smallness more here than elsewhere; it does not require an excess of
pride for one to dislike being reduced to the state of an atom. Residing
in Vienna suits me better; I breathe freer there; it is a city better
adapted to my size and taste. Birds do wrong to change their nests."

Thereupon, he began to describe and warmly extol the Prater and its fine
walks, Schonbrunn, its botanical gardens and the Gloriette, the church
of St. Stephe