all so rapidly accomplished that none of the general public paid
attention to the flight.

"What is it?" said the Princess to Bergaz, when he had quietly resumed
his seat between Rossi and Sanfaute.

"Oh! nothing, I merely wished to shake hands with Mathis as he was going
off."

Thereupon Rosemonde announced that she meant to do the same.
Nevertheless, she lingered a moment longer and again spoke of Norway on
perceiving that nothing could impassion Hyacinthe except the idea of the
eternal snow, the intense, purifying cold of the polar regions. In his
poem on the "End of Woman," a composition of some thirty lines, which he
hoped he should never finish, he thought of introducing a forest of
frozen pines by way of final scene. Now the Princess had risen and was
gaily reverting to her jest, declaring that she meant to take him home to
drink a cup of tea and arrange their trip to the Pole, when an
involuntary exclamation fell from Bergaz, who, while listening, had kept
his eyes on the doorway.

"Mondesir! I was sure of it!"

There had appeared at the entrance a short, sinewy, broad-backed little
man, about whose round face, bumpy forehead, and snub nose there was
considerable military roughness. One might have thought him a
non-commissioned officer in civilian attire. He gazed over the whole
room, and seemed at once dismayed and disappointed.

Bergaz, however, wishing to account for his exclamation, resumed in an