From the superb tranquillity of her attitude, the intelligence of her
eyes, it was easy to infer that a wider field would bring into action
the hidden treasures of a gifted nature. Over the dazzling halo that
surrounded the fair one, which left me the alternative of admiring
silence or heedless vagrancy of speech, one cloud lowered, eclipsing all
her charms and bringing down my divinity from her pedestal--Irene was an
heiress!

The Duchess had clipped the wings of the angel with the phrase of a
marriage-broker. An heiress! the idea of a beautiful woman, full of
poetry and love, inseparately linked to pounds, shillings and pence!

It was a day of amnesty to men, a fête day in Paradise, when God gave to
this young girl that crown of golden hair, that seraphic brow, those
eyes that purified the moral miasma of earth. The ideal of poetry, the
reality of my love!

Think of this living master-piece of the divine studio as the theme of
money-changers, the prize of the highest bidder!

Of course, my dear Edgar, I saw Mlle. de Chateaudun again and again
after this memorable evening; thanks to the facilities afforded me by my
manoeuvring kinswoman, the Duchess, who worshipped the heiress as I
worshipped the woman, I could Add a useless volume of romantic details
leading you to the denouement, which you have already guessed, for you
must see in me the lover of Mlle. de Chateaudun.

I wished to give you the beginning and end of my story; what do you care
for the rest, since it is but the wearisome calendar of all lovers?--The