to be seen any evening at the play, at the opera, in the world of
fashion, and who was certainly not so young as Madame de Manerville,
from whom he had obtained an assignation for that very day, and who
was perhaps waiting for him at that very hour.

But in the glance at once tender and wild, swift and deep, which that
woman's black eyes had shot at him by stealth, there was such a world
of buried sorrows and promised joys! And she had colored so fiercely
when, on coming out of a shop where she had lingered a quarter of an
hour, her look frankly met the Count's, who had been waiting for her
hard by! In fact, there were so many _buts_ and _ifs_, that, possessed
by one of those mad temptations for which there is no word in any
language, not even in that of the orgy, he had set out in pursuit of
this woman, hunting her down like a hardened Parisian.

On the way, whether he kept behind or ahead of this damsel, he studied
every detail of her person and her dress, hoping to dislodge the
insane and ridiculous fancy that had taken up an abode in his brain;
but he presently found in his examination a keener pleasure than he
had felt only the day before in gazing at the perfect shape of a woman
he loved, as she took her bath. Now and again, the unknown fair,
bending her head, gave him a look like that of a kid tethered with its
head to the ground, and finding herself still the object of his
pursuit, she hurried on as if to fly. Nevertheless, each time that a
block of carriages, or any other delay, brought Andrea to her side, he
saw her turn away from his gaze without any signs of annoyance. These
signals of restrained feelings spurred the frenzied dreams that had
run away with him, and he gave them the rein as far as the Rue
Froid-Manteau, down which, after many windings, the damsel vanished,
thinking she had thus spoilt the scent of her pursuer, who was, in