'Now,' as my author has it, 'it happened that the two met.' You see
what a wild and interminable chase. It seems to me, my dear duke,
that destiny has in the same way brought us together, endowed with
conflicting attributes; you who have received from the gods the gift of
reaching all hearts, I whose heart will never be made prisoner."

She spoke these words, looking him full in the face, almost laughing,
but sheathed and erect in the white tunic which seemed to defend her
person against the liberties of his thought. He, the conqueror, the
irresistible, had never before met one of this audacious and headstrong
breed. He brought to bear upon her, therefore, all the magnetic currents
of his seductiveness, while around them the rising murmur of the _fete_,
the soft laughter, the rustle of satins and the rattling of pearls
formed the accompaniment to this duet of mundane passion and juvenile
irony. He resumed after a minute's pause:

"But how did the gods escape from that awkward situation?"

"By turning the two runners into stone."

"Upon my word," said he, "that is a solution which I do not at all
accept. I defy the gods ever to petrify my heart."

A fiery gleam shot for a moment from his eyes, extinguished immediately
by the thought that people were observing them.

In effect, people were observing them intently, but no one with so
much curiosity as Jenkins, who wandered round them a little way off,
impatient and fidgety, as though he were annoyed with Felicia for taking
private possession of the important personage of the assembly. The young