lerable it would be in future to think of him as
always impertinent than to think of him as occasionally contrite.
The two men pretended meanwhile for half an hour to outsit each other
conveniently; and the end--at that rate--might have been distant had not
the tension in some degree yielded to the arrival of a friend of M. de
Mauves--a tall pale consumptive-looking dandy who filled the air with
the odour of heliotrope. He looked up and down the boulevard wearily,
examined the Count's garments in some detail, then appeared to refer
restlessly to his own, and at last announced resignedly that the Duchess
was in town. M. de Mauves must come with him to call; she had abused him
dreadfully a couple of evenings before--a sure sign she wanted to see
him. "I depend on you," said with an infantine drawl this specimen of
an order Longmore felt he had never had occasion so intimately to
appreciate, "to put her en train."

M. de Mauves resisted, he protested that he was d'une humeur
massacrante; but at last he allowed himself to be drawn to his feet
and stood looking awkwardly--awkwardly for M. de Mauves--at Longmore.
"You'll excuse me," he appeared to find some difficulty in saying; "you
too probably have occupation for the evening?"

"None but to catch my train." And our friend looked at his watch.

"Ah you go back to Saint-Germain?"

"In half an hour."

M. de Mauves seemed on the point of disengaging himself from his
companion's arm, which was locked in his own; but on the latter's
uttering some persuasive murmur he lifted his hat stiffly and turned
away.

Longmore the next day wandered off to the terrace to try and beguile
the restlessness with which he waited for the evening; he wished to see
Madame de Mauves for the last time at the hour of long shadows and
pale reflected amber lights, as he had almost always seen her. Destiny,
however, took no account of this humble plea for poetic justice; it
was appointed him to meet her seated by the great walk under a tree and
alone. The hour made the place almost empty; the day was warm, but as
he took his place beside her a light breeze stirred the leafy edges of
their broad circle of shadow. She looked at him almost with no pretence
of not having believed herself already rid of him, and he at once told
her that he should leave Saint-Germain that evening, but must first bid
her farewell. Her face lighted a moment, he fancied, as he spoke; but
she said nothing, only turning it o