She threw the volumes of Waverley upon the sofa, picked up her watering-
pot and went out, closing the door with a loud bang. Madame de
Bergenheim sat motionless with a pensive, gloomy air, as if the young
girl's remark had changed her into a statue.

"Shall I enter?" said Octave to himself, leaving his niche and putting
his hand upon the door-knob. "This little simpleton has done me an
infinite wrong with her silly speeches. I am sure that she is cruising
with full sails set upon the stormy sea of remorse, and that those two
rosebuds she is gazing at now seem to her like her husband's eyes."

Before the poet could make up his mind what to do, the Baroness arose and
left the room, closing the door almost as noisily as her sister-in-law
had done.

Gerfaut went downstairs, cursing, from the very depths of his heart,
boarding-school misses and sixteen-year-old hearts. After walking up and
down the library for a few moments, he left it and started to return to
his room. As he passed the drawing-room, loud music reached his ear;
chromatic fireworks, scales running with the rapidity of the cataract of
Niagara, extraordinary arpeggios, hammering in the bass with a petulance
and frenzy which proved that the 'furie francaise' is not the exclusive
right of the stronger sex. In this jumble of grave, wild, and sad notes,
Gerfaut recognized, by the clearness of touch and brilliancy of some of
the passages, that this improvisation could not come from Aline's
unpractised fingers. He understood that the piano must be at this moment
Madame de Bergenheim's confidant, and that she was pouring out the
contradictory emotions in which she had indulged for several days; for,
to a heart deprived of another heart in which to confide its joys and