"Hearty thanks, my dear Lemercier. I am at your service."




CHAPTER IX.

The _bal champetre_ was gay and brilliant, as such festal scenes are at
Paris. A lovely night in the midst of May, lamps below and stars above;
the society mixed, of course. Evidently, when Graham has singled out
Frederic Lemercier from all his acquaintances at Paris to conjoin with
the official aid of M. Renard in search of the mysterious lady, he had
conjectured the probability that she might be found in the Bohemian world
so familiar to Frederic; if not as an inhabitant, at least as an
explorer. Bohemia was largely represented at the _bal champetre_, but
not without a fair sprinkling of what we call the "respectable classes,"
especially English and Americans, who brought their wives there to take
care of them. Frenchmen, not needing such care, prudently left their
wives at home. Among the Frenchmen of station were the Comte de Passy
and the Vicomte de Breze.

On first entering the gardens, Graham's eye was attracted and dazzled by
a brilliant form. It was standing under a festoon of flowers extended
from tree to tree, and a gas jet opposite shone full upon the face,--the
face of a girl in all the freshness of youth. If the freshness owed
anything to art, the art was so well disguised that it seemed nature.
The beauty of the countenance was Hebe-like, joyous, and radiant; and yet
one could not look at the girl without a sentiment of deep mournfulness.
She was surrounded by a group of young men, and the ring of her laugh
jarred upon Graham's ear. He pressed Frederic's arm, and directing his