n Paris as we came through. I have never
made any claim to pass for a gentleman, Melody, but yet I think I made a
fair enough show of one, that night at least. And being so constituted,
I sat staring at my image in the mirror, and wondering like a fool if
the other man were as good-looking. This would be like a slight crust of
contentment,--sad enough at that,--forming for a moment over the black
depth of sorrow that was my heart; and next moment the pain would stab
through it again, till I could have cried out but for the shame of it;
and so the night wore by, and the morning found me still there. I had
learned little, save the one thing that was all the world,--that I could
not commit a baseness.

It was strange to me, coming down to breakfast, to find Yvon unchanged,
his own gay self simply. I was grown suddenly so old, he seemed no more
than a child to me, with his bits of song that yesterday I had joined in
with a light heart, and his plans for another day of pleasure, like
yesterday and all the days. Looking at him, I could have laughed, had
there been any laughter in me, at the thought of his aunt that I had
come over with a view to bettering myself at his expense. It seemed a
thing of so little moment; I had half a mind to tell him, but held my
peace, wishing her really no evil, since what she had done had been
through love and care for her own. There might be such men as she had
thought me; I have since found that there are indeed.

Yvon was full of plans; we were to ride this afternoon, to such and such
a place; it was the finest view in the country, there was nothing to
approach it. Pierre should drive over and meet us there, with peaches,
and cream, and cakes, and we would sup, we three together, and come home
by moonlight. It would be the very thing! if I really could hold the
bridle? it was the very thing to remove the recollection of last night
from his sister's mind, impressionable, as youth always is. (He said
this, Melody, with an air of seventy years, and wisdom ineffable, that
was comical enough.) "From my own mind," he cried, "never shall the
impression be effaced. Thy heroism, my Jacques, shall be inscribed in
the annals of our houses. To save the life of a Demoiselle de Ste.
Valerie is claim sufficient for undying remembrance; to save the life of
my sister, my Valerie,--and you her saviour, the friend of my
heart,--the combination is perfect; it is ideal. I shall compose a poem,
Jacques; I have a