enabled him to preserve a comparatively slender figure, he would have
joined victoriously in the races, except that his height made his weight
too heavy for that amusement.

Entering his own domain, still overwhelmed, with the shock of the
revelations and the gossip of which he never had dreamed, he felt himself
wounded to the quick in all those sentiments upon which his 'amour
propre' had been most sensitive.

The more he pondered proudly over his pecuniary misfortunes, the more
grave the situation appeared to him, and the more imperious the necessity
of a rupture.

When it had been a question of dismissing Fanny Dorville, an actress of
humble standing, his parting gift, a diamond worth twenty-five thousand
francs, had seemed to him a sufficient indemnity to cancel all accounts.

But now, in the presence of an artiste of merit, who had given herself
without calculation and who loved him for himself alone, how, without
wounding her heart and her dignity, could he break violently a chain so
light yesterday, so heavy to-day?

To indulge in tergiversation, to invent some subterfuge to cover his
retreat--he did not feel himself capable of such a course; moreover, his
manoeuvre would be quickly suspected by a clever woman whom nothing
escaped.

To ask to be sent back to Africa, just at the time when his intelligent
and practical instruction in the latest grand manoeuvres had drawn all
eyes upon him, would compromise, by an untimely retirement, the