"Jacques lighted me to the door," he said, with a half-sad smile which
dispelled any suspicion of jest in those words, while the tone in
which they were spoken went to the heart. Mme. de Beauseant was
disarmed.

"Very well, take a seat," she said.

Gaston eagerly took possession of a chair. His eyes were shining with
happiness; the Vicomtesse, unable to endure the brilliant light in
them, looked down at the book. She was enjoying a delicious, ever new
sensation; the sense of a man's delight in her presence is an
unfailing feminine instinct. And then, besides, he had divined her,
and a woman is so grateful to the man who has mastered the apparently
capricious, yet logical, reasoning of her heart; who can track her
thought through the seemingly contradictory workings of her mind, and
read the sensations, shy or bold, written in fleeting red, a
bewildering maze of coquetry and self-revelation.

"Madame," Gaston exclaimed in a low voice, "my blunder you know, but
you do not know how much I am to blame. If you only knew what joy it
was to----"

"Ah! take care," she said, holding up one finger with an air of
mystery, as she put out her hand towards the bell.

The charming gesture, the gracious threat, no doubt called up some sad
thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be wholly
charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness of her
heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every least
movement. The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, and