“Shall I enter?” said Octave to himself, leaving his niche and putting his hand upon the door-knob.  “This little simpleton has done me an infinite wrong with her silly speeches.  I am sure that she is cruising with full sails set upon the stormy sea of remorse, and that those two rosebuds she is gazing at now seem to her like her husband’s eyes.”

Before the poet could make up his mind what to do, the Baroness arose and left the room, closing the door almost as noisily as her sister-in-law had done.

Gerfaut went downstairs, cursing, from the very depths of his heart, boarding-school misses and sixteen-year-old hearts.  After walking up and down the library for a few moments, he left it and started to return to his room.  As he passed the drawing-room, loud music reached his ear; chromatic fireworks, scales running with the rapidity of the cataract of Niagara, extraordinary arpeggios, hammering in the bass with a petulance and frenzy which proved that the ‘furie francaise’ is not the exclusive right of the stronger sex.  In this jumble of grave, wild, and sad notes, Gerfaut recognized, by the clearness of touch and brilliancy of some of the passages, that this improvisation could not come from Aline’s unpractised fingers.  He understood that the piano must be at this moment Madame de Bergenheim’s confidant, and that she was pouring out the contradictory emotions in which she had indulged for several days; for, to a heart deprived of another heart in which to confide its joys and woes, music is a friend that listens and replies.

Gerfaut listened for some time in silence, with his head leaning against the drawing-room door.  Clemence wandered through vague melodies without fixing upon any one in particular.  At last a thought seemed to captivate her.  After playing the first measures of the romance from Saul, she resumed the motive with more precision, and when she had finished the ritornello she began to sing, in a soft, veiled voice,

          “Assisa al pie d’un salice—­”

Gerfaut had heard her sing this several times, in society, but never with this depth of expression.  She sang before strangers with her lips; now it all came from her heart.  At the third verse, when he believed her to be exalted by her singing and the passion exhaled in this exquisite song, the poet softly entered, judging it to be a favorable moment, and enough agitated himself to believe in the contagion of his agitation.

The first sight which met his eyes was Mademoiselle de Corandeuil stretched out in her armchair, head thrown back, arms drooping and letting escape by way of accompaniment a whistling, crackling, nasal melody.  The old maid’s spectacles hanging on the end of her nose had singularly compromised the harmony of her false front.  The ’Gazette de France’ had fallen from her hands and decorated the back of Constance, who, as usual, was lying at her mistress’s feet.

“Horrible old witch!” said Gerfaut to himself.  “Decidedly, the Fates are against me to-day.”  However, as both mistress and dog were sleeping soundly, he closed the door and tiptoed across the floor.