lent him money for his journey, which, being unexpected, found him
unprepared. Beatrix left a letter for her husband and started the next
day for Italy. There she has remained two years; she has written to me
several times, and her letters are enchanting. The poor child attaches
herself to me as the only woman who will comprehend her. She says she
adores me. Want of money has compelled Gennaro to accept an offer to
write a French opera; he does not find in Italy the pecuniary gains
which composers obtain in Paris. Here's the letter I received
yesterday from Beatrix. Take it and read it; you can now understand
it,--that is, if it is possible, at your age, to analyze the things of
the heart."

So saying, she held out the letter to him.

At this moment Claude Vignon entered the room. At his unexpected
apparition Calyste and Felicite were both silent for a moment,--she
from surprise, he from a vague uneasiness. The vast forehead, broad
and high, of the new-comer, who was bald at the age of thirty-seven,
now seemed darkened by annoyance. His firm, judicial mouth expressed a
habit of chilling sarcasm. Claude Vignon is imposing, in spite of the
precocious deteriorations of a face once magnificent, and now grown
haggard. Between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five he strongly
resembled the divine Raffaelle. But his nose, that feature of the
human face that changes most, is growing to a point; the countenance
is sinking into mysterious depressions, the outlines are thickening;
leaden tones predominate in the complexion, giving tokens of
weariness, although the fatigues of this young man are not apparent;
perhaps some bitter solitude has aged him, or the abuse of his gift of
comprehension. He scrutinizes the thought of every one, yet without
definite aim or system. The pickaxe of his criticism demolishes, it