“Too much; for then he will not be loved in return,” replied Mademoiselle des Touches.  “Madame de Rochefide is coming here,” she added.

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Claude.  “With Conti?”

“She will stay here alone, but he accompanies her.”

“Have they quarrelled?”

“No.”

“Play me a sonata of Beethoven’s; I know nothing of the music he wrote for the piano.”

Claude began to fill the tube of the hookah with Turkish tobacco, all the while examining Camille much more attentively than she observed.  A dreadful thought oppressed him; he fancied he was being used for a blind by this woman.  The situation was a novel one.

Calyste went home thinking no longer of Beatrix de Rochefide and her letter; he was furious against Claude Vignon for what he considered the utmost indelicacy, and he pitied poor Felicite.  How was it possible to be beloved by that sublime creature and not adore her on his knees, not believe her on the faith of a glance or a smile?  He felt a desire to turn and rend that cold, pale spectre of a man.  Ignorant he might be, as Felicite had told him, of the tricks of thought of the jesters of the press, but one thing he knew—­Love was the human religion.

When his mother saw him entering the court-yard she uttered an exclamation of joy, and Zephirine whistled for Mariotte.

“Mariotte, the boy is coming! cook the fish!”

“I see him, mademoiselle,” replied the woman.

Fanny, uneasy at the sadness she saw on her son’s brow, picked up her worsted-work; the old aunt took out her knitting.  The baron gave his arm-chair to his son and walked about the room, as if to stretch his legs before going out to take a turn in the garden.  No Flemish or Dutch picture ever presented an interior in tones more mellow, peopled with faces and forms so harmoniously blending.  The handsome young man in his black velvet coat, the mother, still so beautiful, and the aged brother and sister framed by that ancient hall, were a moving domestic harmony.

Fanny would fain have questioned Calyste, but he had already pulled a letter from his pocket,—­that letter of the Marquise Beatrix, which was, perhaps, destined to destroy the happiness of this noble family.  As he unfolded it, Calyste’s awakened imagination showed him the marquise dressed as Camille Maupin had fancifully depicted her.

  From the Marquise de Rochefide to Mademoiselle des Touches.

Genoa, July 2.

I have not written to you since our stay in Florence, my dear friend, for Venice and Rome have absorbed my time, and, as you know, happiness occupies a large part of life; so far, we have neither of us dropped from its first level.  I am a little fatigued; for when one has a soul not easy to blaser, the constant succession of enjoyments naturally causes lassitude.

Our friend has had a magnificent triumph