"My curiosity is not in regard to his feelings, but in regard to yours."

"Monsieur," she said, with a very captivating air of reproach, "have I
not told you that I shall walk in the gardens of the Tuileries to-morrow
afternoon?"

And she glided away, leaving behind her the most delighted and conceited
young man, at that moment, in France.




CHAPTER III.

THE STRANGE REQUEST OF MLLE. D'ARENCY


I was disappointed in the interview that I had with Mlle. d'Arency in
the gardens of the Tuileries, the next day. I saw her for only a few
minutes, and then within sight of other of Catherine's ladies. Although
I lost nothing of the ground I had taken, neither did I gain anything
further. Afterward, at court receptions and _fetes_, and, sometimes, in
the palace galleries, when she was off duty, I contrived to meet her.
She neither gave me opportunities nor avoided me. All the progress that
I made was in the measure of my infatuation for her. When I begged for a
meeting at which we might not be surrounded by half the court, she
smiled, and found some reason to prevent any such interview in the near
future. So, if I had carried things very far at our first meeting in the
Louvre, I now paid for my exceptional fortune by my inability to carry
them a step further.