Pride kept my eyes fixed on the table.

"But," said my mother, "Henarez must have met the Spanish ambassador
on the steps?"

"Yes," replied my father, "the ambassador asked me if I was conspiring
against the King, his master; but he greeted the ex-grandee of Spain
with much deference, and placed his services at his disposal."

All this, dear, Mme. de l'Estorade, happened a fortnight ago, and it
is a fortnight now since I have seen the man who loves me, for that he
loves me there is not a doubt. What is he about? If only I were a fly,
or a mouse, or a sparrow! I want to see him alone, myself unseen, at
his house. Only think, a man exists, to whom I can say, "Go and die
for me!" And he is so made that he would go, at least I think so.
Anyhow, there is in Paris a man who occupies my thoughts, and whose
glance pours sunshine into my soul. Is not such a man an enemy, whom I
ought to trample under foot? What? There is a man who has become
necessary to me--a man without whom I don't know how to live! You
married, and I--in love! Four little months, and those two doves,
whose wings erst bore them so high, have fluttered down upon the flat
stretches of real life!

Sunday.

Yesterday, at the Italian Opera, I could feel some one was looking at
me; my eyes were drawn, as by a magnet, to two wells of fire, gleaming
like carbuncles in a dim corner of the orchestra. Henarez never moved
his eyes from me. The wretch had discovered the one spot from which he