"Let me laugh the laugh of a lost soul with the careless creatures who
amuse me," she went on. "I live among artists, writers, in short the
world I knew in the salon of our poor Camille--who may indeed have
acted wisely. To enrich the man we love and then to disappear saying,
'I am too old for him!' that is ending like the martyrs,--and the best
end too, if one cannot die a virgin."

She began to laugh, as it to remove the melancholy impression she had
made upon her former adorer.

"But," said Calyste, "where can I go to see you?"

"I am hidden in the rue de Chartres opposite the Parc de Monceaux, in
a little house suitable to my means; and there I cram my head with
literature--but only for myself, to distract my thoughts; God keep me
from the mania of literary women! Now go, leave me; I must not allow
the world to talk of me; what will it not say on seeing us together!
Adieu--oh! Calyste, my friend, if you stay another minute I shall
burst into tears!"

Calyste withdrew, after holding out his hand to Beatrix and feeling
for the second time that strange and deep sensation of a double
pressure--full of seductive tingling.

"Sabine never knew how to stir my soul in that way," was the thought
that assailed him in the corridor.

During the rest of the evening the Marquise de Rochefide did not cast
three straight glances at Calyste, but there were many sidelong looks
which tore of the soul of the man now wholly thrown back into his