believer in your wisdom and genius. Only they will separate you from me,
and a day may come when I should have the painful duty of ordering you to
be shot--_Die meliora_. Think over all I have thus frankly said. Give
me your answer within forty-eight hours; and meanwhile hold no
communication with my ward. I have the honour to wish you good-day."




CHAPTER XI.

The short grim day was closing when Gustave, quitting Julie's apartment,
again found himself in the streets. His thoughts were troubled and
confused. He was the more affected by Julie's impassioned love for him,
by the contrast with Isaura's words and manner in their recent interview.
His own ancient fancy for the "Ondine of Paris" became revived by the
difficulties between their ancient intercourse which her unexpected
scruples and De Mauleon's guardianship interposed. A witty writer thus
defines _une passion, "_une caprice inflamme par des obstacles_." In the
ordinary times of peace, Gustave, handsome, aspiring to reputable
position in the _beau monde_, would not have admitted any considerations
to compromise his station by marriage with a _fagurante_. But now the
wild political doctrines he had embraced separated his ambition from that
_beau monde_, and combined it with ascendancy over the revolutionists of
the populace--a direction which he must abandon if he continued his suit
to Isaura. Then, too, the immediate possession of Julie's dot was not
without temptation to a man who was so fond of his personal comforts, and
who did not see where to turn for a dinner, if, obedient to Isaura's
"prejudices," he abandoned his profits as a writer in the revolutionary
press. The inducements for withdrawal from the cause he had espoused,