longer act them?"

A mournful little smile came upon Mademoiselle Lecouvreur's reddened
lips, and she answered:

"You do not need me, Monsieur, to prove that you can write comedies or
tragedies or anything else. All the muses adopted you at your birth,
and if ever Adrienne Lecouvreur is remembered it will be because she
was chosen by you sometimes to play the immortal parts you created."

There was not one word of flattery in this, I knew; each uttered the
eternal verities.

Then I appeared.

When Mademoiselle Lecouvreur saw me she sprang up with a miraculous
strength--she knew that I was the _avant-courier_ of Maurice of Saxe.
I had no mind to deliver my master's message in Monsieur Voltaire's
ears, but he knew what my coming meant, and scowled at me. He was
furiously jealous of my master with Mademoiselle Lecouvreur.

I thanked Mademoiselle Lecouvreur for her kind greeting; her poor
hands trembled so when she took the note my master had sent that she
dropped it. Monsieur Voltaire handed it to her, and saw plainly the
awkward writing in it--for I make no pretense that Count Saxe could
have earned his living as a writing master. But although Voltaire must
have guessed it all, he forbore to gibe at the letter. Love and pity
had made him almost human.

There was, however, no room for him or me either in the room then.
Mademoiselle Lecouvreur longed to be alone with her treasure of a few
scrawled lines, and both of us went out. The door passed, we were in
the foyer. That door shut out our truce, and Monsieur Voltaire, in the
presence of a number of persons, undertook to make me his butt on
Count Saxe's account.

"So, Captain Babache," he said, "we hear that Count Saxe is on his way
from Courland, and he is probably in Paris now."

This put me in a cruel predicament, for Count Saxe did not wish his
arrival known until he had seen the king; but Monsieur Voltaire was
the man for putting people in cruel predicaments.

I mumbled something and looked about me for an avenue of escape. I never
was ashamed to run away from an enemy too strong for me. But Voltaire
blocked the way for me, his eyes blazing with merriment--those eyes
that burned a hole in one--and a number of persons collected about
us. The foyer was crowded, and wherever Monsieur Voltaire was he
became a beacon light; no one could help watching him or listening to
him, unless, of course, Count Saxe was present.

"I am considering," said Monsieur Voltaire