d her. For an
instant her embarrassment showed itself in a mantling blush and a
distressful yearning to escape; but the next moment she rose, all
a-flutter within, it is true, but with a face as nearly sedate as the
inborn witchery of her eyes would allow.

He spoke in Parisian French:

"Please be seated, madame."

She sank down.

"Do you wish to see me?"

"No, sir."

She did not see her way out of this falsehood, but--she couldn't say
yes.

Silence followed.

"Whom do--"

"I wish to see M. Honore Grandissime."

"That is my name, madame."

"Ah!"--with an angelic smile; she had collected her wits now, and was
ready for war. "You are not one of his clerks?"

M. Grandissime smiled softly, while he said to himself: "You little
honey-bee, you want to sting me, eh?" and then he answered her question.

"No, madame; I am the gentleman you are looking for."

"The gentleman she was look--" her pride resented the fact.
"Me!"--thought she--"I am the lady whom, I have not a doubt, you have
been longing to meet ever since the ball;" but her look was unmoved
gravity. She touched her handkerchief to her lips and handed him the
rent notice.

"I received that from your office the Monday before last."

There was a slight emphasis in the announcement of the time; it was the
day of the run-over.

Honore Grandissime, stopping with the rent-notice only half unfolded,
saw the advisability of calling up all the resources of his sagacity and
wit in order to answer wisely; and as they answered his call a brighter
nobility so overspread face and person that Aurora inwardly exclaimed at
it even while she exulted in her thrust.

"Monday before last?"

She slightly bowed.

"A serious misfortune befell me that day," said M. Grandissime.

"Ah?" replied the lady, raising her brows with polite distress, "but
you have entirely recovered, I suppose."

"It was I, madame, who that evening caused you a mortification for which
I fear you will accept no apology."

"On the contrary," said Aurora, with an air of generous protestation,
"it is I who should apologize; I fear I injured your horse."

M. Grandissime only smiled, and opening the rent-notice dropped his
glance upon it while he said in a preoccupied tone:

"My horse is very well, I thank you."

But as he read the paper, his face assumed a serious air and he seemed
to take an unnecessary length of time to reach the bottom of it.

"He is trying to think how he will get