the crowd.

Fanfar and Caillette were alone. He was trying the ropes of the trapeze,
while she was giving some finishing touches to the interior decoration.
Suddenly, she stopped and looked up at Fanfar, who was swinging from a
wooden bar. An artist would have been struck with the beauty of his
figure.

Caillette watched him breathlessly as he went through his exercises, and
as he dropped at last on the floor, so lightly that his feet scarcely
left their imprint, she threw both arms around his neck.

"How bad you are!" she cried, "you frighten me half out of my wits."

"Frighten you, child! Are you not yet accustomed to my exercises, little
sister?"

Caillette colored, and half turned away.

"Why do you call me little sister?" she said.

Fanfar dropped her hands, which he had taken from his neck. A cloud
passed swiftly over his brow.

"Because we have been brought up together," he answered, slowly. "You
were not more than six years old when your father took me into his
service. But does it vex you for me to call you sister?"

"No, it does not vex me, but I would rather you did not."

Fanfar understood her, and was disturbed. He had long since seen in the
girl a growing passion for himself. Her innocence and purity were
exquisite, but at the same time she loved Fanfar. He did not love her.
He would have given his life for her, but he did not wish to spend it
with her, and at the thought of Caillette as his wife he drew back. He
now disengaged himself gently from her clinging arms.

"To work!" he said, "it is growing late."

Caillette took up her needle, as the door opened to admit Gudel. He was
not alone, two ladies of aristocratic bearing were with him.

"But, my dear Irene, this is a strange caprice," said the elder of the
two. "What will the Countess say?"

"My dear Madame Ursula, it would oblige me if you would cease your
moans, that is, unless you should prefer to return to the chateau
alone!"

The dear Madame Ursula was a tall, thin woman, wearing blue glasses. She
was evidently a companion or governess.

Irene, in her riding-habit, looked about twenty. Her hair was jet black,
and curled over a marble white brow. Her hat, Louis XIII. in shape, with
curling plumes, gave a haughty expression to her dainty features. She
looked as if she might have stepped from out the frame of one of the
pictures of Velasquez. Her beauty was striking. Fanfar grasped it,
Caillette studied it.

"Pray tell me," said