second thought he determined to make it as brief as possible. Having
brought it to a close, he took his way to the Kursaal. The great German
watering-place is one of the prettiest nooks in Europe, and of a summer
evening in the gaming days, five-and-twenty years ago, it was one of the
most brilliant scenes. The lighted windows of the great temple of hazard
(of as chaste an architecture as if it had been devoted to a much purer
divinity) opened wide upon the gardens and groves; the little river that
issues from the bosky mountains of the Black Forest flowed, with an air
of brook-like innocence, past the expensive hotels and lodging-houses;
the orchestra, in a high pavilion on the terrace of the Kursaal, played
a discreet accompaniment to the conversation of the ladies and gentlemen
who, scattered over the large expanse on a thousand little chairs,
preferred for the time the beauties of nature to the shuffle of coin and
the calculation of chance; while the faint summer stars, twinkling above
the vague black hills and woods, looked down at the indifferent groups
without venturing to drop their light upon them.

Longueville, noting all this, went straight into the gaming-rooms; he
was curious to see whether his friend, being fond of experiments, was
trying combinations at roulette. But he was not to be found in any of
the gilded chambers, among the crowd that pressed in silence about the
tables; so that Bernard presently came and began to wander about the
lamp-lit terrace, where innumerable groups, seated and strolling, made
the place a gigantic conversazione. It seemed to him very agreeable and
amusing, and he remarked to himself that, for a man who was supposed not
to take especially the Epicurean view of life, Gordon Wright, in coming
to Baden, had certainly made himself comfortable. Longueville went his
way, glancing from one cluster of talkers to another; and at last he saw
a face which brought him to a stop. He stood a moment looking at it; he
knew he had seen it before. He had an excellent memory for faces; but
it was some time before he was able to attach an identity to this one.
Where had he seen a little elderly lady with an expression of timorous
vigilance, and a band of hair as softly white as a dove's wing? The
answer to the question presently came--Where but in a grass-grown corner
of an old Italian town? The lady was the mother of his inconsequent
model, so that this mysterious personage was probably herself no