ried. "For I, even I the
coward, had sooner----"

"Be misunderstood?"

"Why, precisely. I had sooner be misunderstood than that your hair
should not be perfectly dressed at the theatre."

Wetter rose to his feet. He said "Good-bye" to Coralie, not a word more.
To me he bowed very low and very formally. I returned his salutation
with a cool nod. As he turned to the door Coralie cried:

"I shall see you at supper, _mon cher_?"

He turned his head and looked at her.

"I don't know," he said.

"Very well. I like uncertainty. We will hope."

He went out. I stood facing her for a moment.

"Well?" said she, looking in my eyes, and seeming to challenge an
expression of opinion.

"You are pleased with yourself?"

"Yes."

"You have done some mischief."

"How much?"

"I don't know. But you love uncertainty."

"True, true. And you seem to think that I love candour."

"Don't you?"

"I think that I love everything and everybody in the world except you."

I laughed again. I knew that I had triumphed.

"Behold your decision," I cried, "and the hair-dresser still waits!"

She did not answer me. She stood there smiling. I took her hand and
kissed it with much and even affected gallantry. Then I went and paid a
like attention to Madame Briande. As the little woman made her curtsey
she turned alarmed and troubled eyes up to me.

"Oh, _mon Dieu_!" she murmured.

"Till to-night," smiled Coralie.

CHAPTER XVI.

A CHASE OF TWO PHANTOMS.

I was reading the other day the memoirs of an eminent English man of
letters, now dead. He had paid a long visit to Forstadt, and had much to
say (sometimes, I think, in a vein of veiled irony) about Victoria, her
literary tastes and her literary circle. Finding amusement enough to
induce me to turn over a few more pages, I came on the following
passage:

"With the King himself I conversed once only; but I saw him often and
heard much about him. He was then twenty-four--a tall and very thin
young man, with dark brown hair and a small mustache of a lighter tint.
His nose was aquiline, his eyes rather deep set, his face long and
inclining to the hatchet-shape. He had beautiful hands, of which he was
said to be proud. He stooped a little when walking, but displayed
considerable dignity of carriage. He was accused of haughtiness, except
toward a few intimates. Unquestionably his late adviser, Hammerfeldt,
had imbued him with some notions as to his position which it is ha