You see me looking like a brainless hoyden,
I sing, I jest, I talk slang. My gayety surprises everybody. In
reality, I am literally tired to death. What I feel I could not
express, there are no words to render absolute disgust. Sometimes I
say to myself, 'It is stupid to be so sad. What do you need? Are
you not young, handsome, rich?' But I must need something, or else
I would not be thus agitated, nervous, anxious, unable to stay in
one place, tormented by confused aspirations, and by desires which
I cannot formulate. What can I do? Seek oblivion in pleasure and
dissipation? I try, and I succeed for an hour or so; but the
reaction comes, and the effect vanishes, like froth from champagne.
The lassitude returns; and, whilst outwardly I continue to laugh,
I shed within tears of blood which scald my heart. What is to
become of me, without a memory in the past, or a hope in the future,
upon which to rest my thought?"

And bursting into tears,

"Oh, I am wretchedly unhappy!" she exclaimed; "and I wish I was
dead."

M. de Tregars rose, feeling more deeply moved than he would, perhaps,
have liked to acknowledge.

"I was laughing at you only a moment since," he said in his grave
and vibrating voice. "Pardon me, mademoiselle. It is with the utmost
sincerity, and from the innermost depths of my soul, that I pity
you."

She was looking at him with an air of timid doubt, big tears
trembling between her long eyelashes.

"Honest?" she asked.

"Upon my honor."

"And you will not go with too poor an opinion of me?"

"I shall retain the firm belief that when you were yet but a child,
you were spoiled by insane theories."

Gently and sadly she was passing her hand over her forehead.

"Yes, that's it," she murmured. "How could I resist examples coming
from certain persons? How could I help becoming intoxicated when
I saw myself, as it were, in a cloud of incense when I heard nothing
but praises and applause? And then there is the money, which
depraves when it comes in a certain way."

She ceased to speak; but the silence was soon again broken by a
slight noise, which came from the adjoining room.

Mechanically, M. de Tregars looked around him. The little parlor
in which he found himself was divided from the main drawing-room
of the house by a tall and broad door, closed only by heavy curtains,
which had remained partially drawn. Now, such was the disposition
of the mirrors in the two rooms, that M.