sunland.--Yes, but in the grasp of a great prose giant, with the poetic
departed! Naturally she turned to caress the poetic while she had it
beside her. And it was a wonder to observe the young prince's heavenly
sensitiveness to every variation of her moods. He knew without hearing
when she had next seen Alvan, though it had not been to speak to him. He
looked, and he knew. The liquid darkness of his large eastern eyes cast
a light that brought her heart out: she confessed it, and she comforted
him. The sweetest in the woman caused her double-dealing.

Now she was aware that Alvan moved behind the screen concealing him.
A common friend of Alvan and her family talked to her of him. He was an
eminent professor, a middleaged, grave and honourable man, not ignorant
that her family entertained views opposed to the pretensions of such a
man as the demagogue and Jew. Nevertheless Alvan could persuade him to
abet the scheme for his meeting Clotilde; nay, to lead to it; ultimately
to allow his own house to be their place of meeting. Alvan achieved the
first of the steps unassisted. Whether or not his character stood well
with a man of the world, his force of character, backed by solid
attainments in addition to brilliant gifts, could win a reputable citizen
and erudite to support him. Rhetoric in a worthy cause has good chances
of carrying the gravest, and the cause might reasonably seem excellent to
the professor when one promising fair to be the political genius of his
time, but hitherto not the quietest of livers, could make him believe
that marriage with this girl would be his clear salvation. The second
step was undesignedly Clotilde's.

She was on the professor's arm at one of the great winter balls of her
conductor's brethren in the law, and he said: 'Alvan is here.' She
answered: 'No, he has not yet come.'--How could she tell that he was not
present in the crowd?