ble, immeasurable by his own fretful spirit. Suddenly he gave three passionate switches in the air with his cane, which made Madame de Mauves look round. She could hardly have guessed that they meant that where ambition was so vain, it was an innocent compensation to plunge into worship.
Madame de Mauves found in her drawing-room the little elderly Frenchman, M. de Chalumeau, whom Longmore had observed a few days before on the terrace. On this occasion, too, Madame Clairin was entertaining him, but as his sister-in-law came in she surrendered her post and addressed herself to our hero. Longmore, at thirty, was still an ingenuous youth, and there was something in this lady's large coquetry which had the power of making him blush. He was surprised at finding he had not absolutely forfeited her favor by his deportment at their last interview, and a suspicion of her meaning to approach him on another line completed his uneasiness.
"So you've returned from Brussels," she said, "by way of the forest."
"I 've not been to Brussels. I returned yesterday from Paris by the only way,—by the train."
Madame Clairin stared and laughed. "I 've never known a young man to be so fond of Saint-Germain. They generally declare it's horribly dull."
"That's not very polite to you," said Longmore, who
