Vergniaud, the sooner you say it the better."

"I have said it, and he doesn't mind it in the least. I wish you would
tell him: you always speak so that people know you are in earnest and
can't help believing you."

"Very well, Helen. I will ask Madame Le Fort to tell him that his suit
is hopeless, and that he must not annoy you by persisting in it."

Early in February the Belgian ambassador, M. le comte de Beyens, and
Madame la comtesse, kindly took charge of Miss St. Clair to the imperial
ball at the Tuileries. She had never looked more charming than in the
exquisite costume of pale rose-colored faille, with a floating mist of
white tulle, caught here and there by rosebuds that might have grown in
Chrimhild's garden. The airy figure, so graceful in every motion, the
well-poised head with its flutter of shining curls, the wonderful dark
eyes, the perfect eyebrows, the delicious little mouth where love seemed
to nestle--when she had vanished "it seemed like the ceasing of
exquisite music." Madame la comtesse congratulated me on her appearance,
and afterward on her success. The emperor had distinguished her in a
very flattering manner, and Eugénie, looking earnestly at her, said to
the comtesse, "Nothing is so beautiful as youth," perhaps beginning to
regret her own. No one had made so decided a sensation.

At Madame Le Fort's next reception there was a sudden influx of new
guests--a young Belgian baron of old historic name, slim and stiff as a
poker; a brisk French viscount, who told me that he had been connected
with the embassy at Washington, and had quite fallen in love with our
institutions; an Italian chevalier, a Russian prince.