d them into an altar as rapidly as possible. The party
arranged themselves in a quadrangle around it.

The altar being completed, Pontiff Vaudreuil proceeded with the mystery
thus--

"Listen, dryads and demi-gods, to the oracles of the divinity. The
decree of Aphrodite hath it that for the space of one hour there shall
be fair amity between----" Here he named the company off in pairs,
carefully pre-meditated. As pair after pair were called, they stepped
forward on the lawn amid a chorus of laughter, and swelled a procession
facing the priest and altar.

Lecour wondered as he saw the remaining number dwindle, who should be
paired with himself. Strict rules of precedence he knew would govern it.
At length, to his astonishment, he heard the words--

"Madame la Baronne de la Roche-Vernay, and Monsieur de Repentigny."

He looked hastily around.

It was then that two ladies were seen hurrying into the arena from the
direction of the Trianon. One was the Duchess de Mouchy; the other, of
the same age and dressed in a simple cloud of white tulle, came behind
her, and Germain, as if in an apparition, saw his Cyrene. Her obeisances
to the Queen and company over, she turned and courtesied very deeply to
her lover, who trembled with delight under her smile.

He was quickly recalled by the voice of de Vaudreuil, this time crying--

"Her Majesty of France, and her Majesty's servant and subject the High
Priest of the goddess."

It was the invariable custom of the ambitious and confident courtier to
appropriate the Queen to himself.

Pausing at the close, he raised his arm ritually towards the trees and
rested thus a moment speechless.

"Descampativos!" he suddenly exclaimed in a stentorian tone, throwing
off his robe.

At the word, the pairs broke ranks, the ladies screamed with merriment,
and all the pairs scampered into the woods in different directions to
follow what paths might suit them, bound only by the rule of the game to
return in an hour.

Germain and Cyrene strayed from the others into the groves, until the
voices grew fainter and fainter and at last died away. They walked on
without finding any necessity of speaking, for their glances and the
ever sweet pang of love in their breasts sufficed. At last they found a
little space with a fountain where the water spurted up in three jets
out of the points of a Triton's spear, and there being a seat there,
they took it, sat down, and looked in each other's eyes.