her boudoir, or the gaieties of Devonshire
House, or perhaps to her abhorrence of Monsieur le Mari."

"Le Mari!" I repeated the words with an involuntary start.

"Bah! 'tis all the same. She is affianced, and among us that tie is
quite as legitimate as marriage, and, our libellers say, a little
stronger. But they certainly are _not_ married yet, for Mademoiselle
Clotilde either is, or affects, the invalid; and considering the
probability that she abhors the man and the match, I think, on the
whole, that she acts diplomatically in informing the vainest colonel, in
or out of France, that she is sick of any thing rather than of him."

"But your Mariamne--how go on your interests there?" The question
brought a smile and a sigh together, before he could find an answer.

"How she is, what she is doing, or intends to do, or even what she is,
are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the wind blows. She
torments me, and takes a delight in tormenting me. I have been on the
point of throwing up my commission a hundred times since I saw you, and
flying to America, or the world's end. She controls me in every thing,
insists on knowing all my movements from hour to hour, finds them out
when I attempt to conceal them as matter of duty, tortures me for the
concealment, and then laughs at me for the confession. She is
intolerable."

"And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain, or how come
here? How long have you been in Paris?"

"Just two days; and busy ones, or I should have found you out before.
Yes, I had Mariamne's full permission to come; though to this moment I
cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden order from
Montrecour, who is deep in the emigrant affairs, to set out with letters
which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared not leave London
without asking _her_ permission; and I acknowledge asking her at the
same time to run away with me, and give herself a lawful title to be my
tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai was out of the question. Her
answer was immediate; contemptuous in the extreme as to my proposal, yet
almost urgent on me to accept the mission, and lose no time between
London and Paris. Her postscript was the oddest part of all. It was a
grave recommendation to discover _you_, in whatever height or depth of
the capital you might exist; whether you figured in the court or the
cloister; were the idol of the maids of honour, or the model of the
monks of La Trappe; to