e at the Hotel Kirkpatrick at nine o'clock.

It was a bright moonlit May evening when I arrived. Two sedan chairs
were in waiting for the ladies and a red domino and mask for me, in
which I looked exactly like the devil. Madame Villars came tripping
down into the courtyard, wearing a white domino and mask, followed by
Francezka in a black and silver domino and mask.

I could not see Francezka's face, and so did not know whether she
looked well or ill, happy or unhappy. And she was naturally so
accomplished an actress that she might defy any one to find out her
real feelings, if she wished to disguise them. On this evening she
chose to appear very gay and merry, laughed with Madame Villars, joked
with me, and sprang into the sedan chair with the airiest grace
imaginable.

We set off, the ladies in their chairs, I walking by their side, and
the object of many jeers and gibes from the irreverent, whom we
passed, as I made my way encumbered with the skirt of the infernal red
domino, which I held knee-high.

We reached Monsieur Voltaire's lodging, a fine one in the Rue St.
Jacques, with a garden at the back. The porter, who was used to such
descents, grinned enormously, and let us pass into Monsieur
Voltaire's apartment. The saloon was on the ground floor at the back
and opened into the garden, now all sweetness and freshness. The
saloon was a fine, airy room, lighted with wax candles, and in the
middle, around a table on which were wine and books and verses
scribbled on scraps of paper, sat Monsieur Voltaire, Gaston Cheverny
and Jacques Haret!

The sight nearly knocked me down. Monsieur Voltaire had always
despised Jacques Haret, and I had never known him to amuse himself
with Jacques Haret's wit, or to countenance the fellow at all. But
here the two sat, as jovial as you please, and Gaston Cheverny between
them! I glanced toward Francezka. She was standing with her hand on
the back of a gilded chair, and she had pulled the sleeve of her
domino down so that her hand, a delicate and beautiful one, once seen,
not to be forgotten, was hid. But there was not a tremor about her. I
judged that she had summoned all her courage and all her matchless
powers of acting to carry her through this scene where she had so
unexpectedly found herself. I knew it was impossible that she should
not be in a tempest of rage with Gaston for his continued association
with Jacques Haret, which was so great an affront to her, and
Francezka was