eloquent hand-shake. I could wish nothing more speaking than that
hand-shake. But mamma, who was observing us attentively, had clearly
seen our two hands, after having found a way to say very pleasant
things, had had a great deal of trouble in separating. I expected, of
course, to see him the next day. Did you come?"

"No."

"And the day after that?"

"No, nor then."

"At last, after three days, mamma took me to the races at the Bois de
Boulogne. We arrived, and there at once, two steps from me, I saw him.
But no, it was no longer he; frigid greeting, frigid good-day, frigid
hand-shake, frigid words, and very few of them--scarcely a few
sentences, awkward and embarrassed. Then he was lost in the crowd, and
that was all. He did not appear again. I was dumfounded, overcome,
crushed."

"But it was your mother who--"

"Yes, I know now; but I did not know that day. Yes, it was mamma. Oh,
must I not love mamma to have forgiven her that?"

"She had come to me very early in the morning the day after the very
eloquent hand-shake and there, in tears--yes, literally in tears (she
was sobbing)--she had appealed to my sense of honor, of delicacy, of
integrity. 'You both had,' she said to me, 'yesterday, on seeing each
other again after a long absence, a little spasm of emotion. That is all