elves by looking on.
Every time that _she_ came past him, his eyes darted down upon her
eddying face; he might have been a tiger with the prey in his grasp. The
waltz came to an end, Mme de Langeais went back to her place beside the
Countess, and Montriveau never took his eyes off her, talking all the
while with a stranger.

"One of the things that struck me most on the journey," he was saying
(and the Duchess listened with all her ears), "was the remark which the
man makes at Westminster when you are shown the axe with which a man in
a mask cut off Charles the First's head, so they tell you. The King made
it first of all to some inquisitive person, and they repeat it still in
memory of him."

"What does the man say?" asked Mme de Serizy.

"'Do not touch the axe!'" replied Montriveau, and there was menace in
the sound of his voice.

"Really, my Lord Marquis," said Mme de Langeais, "you tell this old
story that everybody knows if they have been to London, and look at my
neck in such a melodramatic way that you seem to me to have an axe in
your hand."

The Duchess was in a cold sweat, but nevertheless she laughed as she
spoke the last words.

"But circumstances give the story a quite new application," returned he.

"How so; pray tell me, for pity's sake?"

"In this way, madame--you have touched the axe," said Montriveau,
lowering his voice.

"What an enchanting prophecy!" returned she, smiling with assumed grace.
"And when is my head to fall?"

"I have no wish to see that pretty head of yours cut off. I only fear
some great misfortune for you. If your head were clipped close, would
you feel no regrets for the dainty golden hair that you turn to such
good account?"

"There are those for whom a woman would love to make such a sacrifice;
even if, as often happens, it is for the sake of a man who cannot make
allowances for an outbreak of temper."

"Quite so. Well, and if some wag were to spoil your beauty on a sudden
by some chemical process, and you, who are but eighteen for us, were to
be a hundred years old?"

"Why, the smallpox is our Battle of Waterloo, monsieur," she
interrupted. "After it is over we find out those who love us sincerely."

"Would you not regret the lovely face that?"

"Oh! indeed I should, but less for my own sake than for the sake of
someone else whose delight it might have been. And, after all, if I were
loved, always loved, and truly loved, what would my beauty matter to
me?--Wha