"Yet," said Alain, in a tone of voice that implied doubt, "if I
understand Lemercier aright, you were going with him to the Bois on the
chance of seeing again the lady in whom your interest has ceased."

"Lemercier's account was not strictly accurate. He stopped his carriage
to speak to me on quite another subject, on which I have consulted him,
and then proposed to take me on to the Bois. I assented; and it was not
till we were in the carriage that he suggested the idea of seeing whether
the pearly-robed lady had resumed her walk in the allee. You may judge
how indifferent I was to that chance when I preferred turning back with
you to going on with him. Between you and me, Marquis, to men of our
age, who have the business of life before them, and feel that if there be
aught in which noblesse oblige it is a severe devotion to noble objects,
there is nothing more fatal to such devotion than allowing the heart to
be blown hither and thither at every breeze of mere fancy, and dreaming
ourselves into love with some fair creature whom we never could marry
consistently with the career we have set before our ambition. I could
not marry an actress,--neither, I presume, could the Marquis de
Rochebriant; and the thought of a courtship which excluded the idea of
marriage to a young orphan of name unblemished, of virtue unsuspected,
would certainly not be compatible with 'devotion to noble objects.'"

Alain involuntarily bowed his head in assent to the proposition, and, it
may be, in submission to an implied rebuke.

The two men walked in silence for some minutes, and Graham first spoke,
changing altogether the subject of conversation. "Lemercier tells me you
decline going much into this world of Paris, the capital of capitals,
which appears so irresistibly attractive to us foreigners."