ew
had involved a little vain-glorying before his acquaintances.

"Above all," she added, "do not speak to the porter as you come out."

"And why?" said he. "Of all your instructions, that seems to me the
least important."

"You at first doubted the wisdom of some of the others, which you now
see to be very necessary," she replied. "Believe me, this also has its
uses; in time you will see them; and what am I to think of your
affection, if you refuse me such trifles at our first interview?"

Silas confounded himself in explanations and apologies; in the middle of
these she looked up at the clock and clapped her hands together with a
suppressed scream.

"Heavens!" she cried, "is it so late? I have not an instant to lose.
Alas, we poor women, what slaves we are! What have I not risked for you
already?"

And after repeating her directions, which she artfully combined with
caresses and the most abandoned looks, she bade him farewell and
disappeared among the crowd.

The whole of the next day Silas was filled with a sense of great
importance; he was now sure she was a countess; and when evening came he
minutely obeyed her orders and was at the corner of the Luxembourg
Gardens by the hour appointed. No one was there. He waited nearly half
an hour, looking in the face of every one who passed or loitered near
the spot; he even visited the neighbouring corners of the Boulevard and
made a complete circuit of the garden railings; but there was no
beautiful countess to throw herself into his arms. At last, and most
reluctantly, he began to retrace his steps towards his hotel. On the way
he remembered the words he had heard pass between Madame Zephyrine and
the blond young man, and they gave him an indefinite uneasiness.

"It appears," he reflected, "that every one has to tell lies to our
porter."

He rang the bell, the door opened before him, and the porter in his
bed-clothes came to offer him a light.

"Has he gone?" inquired the porter.

"He? Whom do you mean?" asked Silas, somewhat sharply, for he was
irritated by his disappointment.

"I did not notice him go out," continued the porter, "but I trust you
paid him. We do not care, in this house, to have lodgers who cannot meet
their liabilities."

"What the devil do you mean?" demanded Silas, rudely. "I cannot
understand a word of this farrago."

"The short, blond young man who came for his debt," returned the other.
"Him it is I mean. Who else should it be, when