And so it happened that there were two sets of people inspecting the
menagerie after the performance. Andree let a dozen of the animals out--
lions, leopards, a tiger, and a bear,--and they gambolled round her
playfully, sometimes quarrelling with each other, but brought up smartly
by her voice and a little whip, which she always carried--the only sign
of professional life about her, though there was ever a dagger hid in her
dress. For the rest, she looked a splendid gipsy.

Gaston suddenly asked if he might visit her. At the moment she was
playing with the young tiger. She paused, was silent, preoccupied. The
tiger, feeling neglected, caught her hand with its paw, tearing the skin.
Gaston whipped out his handkerchief, and stanched the blood. She wrapped
the handkerchief quickly round her hand, and then, recovering herself,
ordered the animals back into their cages. They trotted away, and the
attendant locked them up. Meanwhile Jacques had picked up and handed to
Gaston a letter, dropped when he drew out his handkerchief. It was one
received two days before from Delia Gasgoyne. He had a pang of
confusion, and hastily put it into his pocket.

Up to this time there had been no confusion in his mind. He was going
back to do his duty; to marry the girl, union with whom would be an
honour; to take his place in his kingdom. He had had no minute's doubt
of that. It was necessary, and it should be done. The girl? Did he not
admire her, honour her, care for her? Why, then, this confusion?

Andree said to him that he might come the next morning for breakfast.
She said it just as the manager and Meyerbeer passed her. Meyerbeer
heard it, and saw the look in the faces of both: in hers, bewildered,
warm, penetrating; in Gaston's, eager, glowing, bold, with a distant kind