so false and deceiving?  He appeared to be weary of his troubles and his love,—­in short, disgusted with life.  He regrets having allied himself so publicly with the marquise, and made me, in speaking of his past happiness, a melancholy poem, which was somewhat too clever to be true.  I think he hoped to worm out of me the secret of your love, in the midst of the joy he expected his flatteries to cause me.”

“What else?” said Calyste, watching Beatrix and Conti, who were now coming towards them; but he listened no longer to Camille’s words.

In talking with Conti, Camille had held herself prudently on the defensive; she had betrayed neither Calyste’s secret nor that of Beatrix.  The great artist was capable of treachery to every one, and Mademoiselle des Touches warned Calyste to distrust him.

“My dear friend,” she said, “this is by far the most critical moment for you.  You need caution and a sort of cleverness you do not possess; I am afraid you will let yourself be tricked by the most wily man I have ever known, and I can do nothing to help you.”

The bell announced dinner.  Conti offered his arm to Camille; Calyste gave his to Beatrix.  Camille drew back to let the marquise pass, but the latter had found a moment in which to look at Calyste, and impress upon him, by putting her finger on her lips, the absolute necessity of discretion.

Conti was extremely gay during the dinner; perhaps this was only one way of probing Madame de Rochefide, who played her part extremely ill.  If her conduct had been mere coquetry, she might have deceived even Conti; but her new love was real, and it betrayed her.  The wily musician, far from adding to her embarrassment, pretended not to have perceived it.  At dessert, he brought the conversation round to women, and lauded the nobility of their sentiments.  Many a woman, he said, who might have been willing to abandon a man in prosperity, would sacrifice all to him in misfortune.  Women had the advantage over men in constancy; nothing ever detached them from their first lover, to whom they clung as a matter of honor, unless he wounded them; they felt that a second love was unworthy of them, and so forth.  His ethics were of the highest order; shedding incense on the altar where he knew that one heart at least, pierced by many a blow, was bleeding.  Camille and Beatrix alone understood the bitterness of the sarcasms shot forth in the guise of eulogy.  At times they both flushed scarlet, but they were forced to control themselves.  When dinner was over, they took each other by the arm to return to Camille’s salon, and, as if by mutual consent, they turned aside into the great salon, where they could be alone for an instant in the darkness.

“It is dreadful to let Conti ride over me roughshod; and yet I can’t defend myself,” said Beatrix, in a low voice.  “The galley-slave is always a slave to his chain-companion.  I am lost; I must needs return to my galleys!  And it is you, Camille, who have cast me there!  Ah! you brought him back a day too soon, or a day too late.  I recognize your infernal talent as author.  Well, your revenge is complete, the finale perfect!”