' she said.

"When Madame Riano heard of it she was for mounting a-horseback and
going in search of Jacques Haret. One thing, however, we may
reasonably count on--that Jacques Haret shall one day pay for this."

"Undoubtedly," I replied.

We spoke more on this melancholy business, and talked on other things,
and then Gaston Cheverny went to pay his respects to Count Saxe in his
room; but Count Saxe was out--gone in pursuit of knowledge and virtue,
I fancy.

In that month of January began a life of tedium for us which had few
mitigations. A young man, like Gaston Cheverny, full of spirit but
with little money, was under many disabilities at Paris. His wit and
fine person made him to be sought after by those who knew him already,
but he was not by nature a carpet knight. No soldier of Hannibal
enjoyed Mantua more than Gaston Cheverny would have enjoyed Paris in
winter after a summer's campaigning; but to sit, kicking his heels day
after day, was irksome to him. Being a proud man, it did not please
him to expose the smallness of his fortune when it could be helped, so
he, with me, lived a life which we often compared to that of the monks
of La Trappe. We read much--Gaston, in especial I believe, mastered by
heart every poem on love printed in the French language and many in
the Italian, Spanish and English languages. He likewise achieved a
great number of songs, and actually composed some himself; but of
these last, I have heard better, I must acknowledge.

The Hotel Kirkpatrick was unoccupied and closed, the entrances and
windows boarded up. There was no talk during all that year of Madame
Riano and Mademoiselle Capello returning to Paris. I heard often of
them through persons passing from Brussels to Paris. Mademoiselle
Capello, out of her abundant kindness, often sent me messages of
good-will--nay, even a pair of gloves wrought with her own hand--a
favor I never heard of her doing to any gentleman; for she was chary
of her favors to the great. She told me, years afterward, that
standing so much alone in the world as she was, and the hunted of
fortune seekers, from the first she ever relied upon me as one of her
truest friends. And she was justified.

Gaston Cheverny kept up a constant correspondence with his brother,
for never at any time did their rivalry for Francezka seem to
interrupt the brotherly intercourse between the two Chevernys. They
were very far from being Mademoiselle Capello's only suitors, that I