, was magnificent, and along the boulevards,
where the Provencal was airing his love and his melancholy, the out-door
life and gaiety were as animated as in summer. On the boulevard des
Italiens, formerly known as the boulevard de Gand, as he lounged past
the long line of chairs before the Cafe de Paris, where, mingled with
a few women of the Chaussee d'Antin accompanied by their husbands and
children, may be seen toward evening a cordon of nocturnal beauties
waiting only a gloved hand to gather them, la Peyrade's heart received a
cruel shock. From afar, he thought he saw his adored countess.

She was alone, in a dazzling toilet scarcely authorized by the place and
her isolation; before her, mounted on a chair, trembled a tiny lap-dog,
which she stroked from time to time with her beautiful hands. After
convincing himself that he was not mistaken, la Peyrade was about to
dart upon that celestial vision, when he was forestalled by a dandy of
the most triumphant type. Without throwing aside his cigar, without even
touching his hat, this handsome young man began to converse with the
barrister's ideal; but when she saw la Peyrade making towards her the
siren must have felt afraid, for she rose quickly, and taking the arm of
the man who was talking to her, she said aloud:--

"Is your carriage here, Emile? Mabille closes to-night, and I should
like to go there."

The name of that disreputable place thus thrown in the face of the
unhappy barrister, was a charity, for it saved him from a foolish
action, that of addressing, on the arm of the man who had suddenly made
himself her cavalier, the unworthy creature of whom he was thinking a
few seconds earlier with so much tenderness.

"She is not worth insulting," he said to himself.

But, as lovers are beings who will not allow their foothold to be taken
from them easily, the Provencal was neither convinced nor resigned as
yet. Not far from the place which his countess had left, sat another
woman, also alone; but this one was ripe with years, with feathers on
her head, and beneath the folds of a cashmere shawl she concealed the
plaintive remains of tarnished elegance and long past luxury. There was
nothing imposing about this sight, nor did it command respect, but the
contrary. La Peyrade went up to the woman without ceremony and addressed
her.

"Madame," he said, "do you know that woman who has just gone away on the
arm of a gentleman?"

"Certainly, monsieur; I know nearly