regards the senhora?"

"What a question to ask me! Why not request me to tell you where Soult will
fight us next, and when Marmont will cross the frontier? My dear boy, I
have not seen her for a week, an entire week,--seven full days and nights,
each with their twenty-four hours of change and vacillation."

"Well, then, give me the last bulletin from the seat of war; that at least
you can do. Tell me how you parted."

"Strangely enough. You must know we had a grand dinner at the villa the
day before I left; and when we adjourned for our coffee to the garden, my
spirits were at the top of their bent. Inez never looked so beautiful,
never was one half so gracious; and as she leaned upon my arm, instead
of following the others towards the little summer-house, I turned, as if
inadvertently, into a narrow, dark alley that skirts the lake."

"I know it well; continue."

Power reddened slightly, and went on:--

"'Why are we taking this path?' said Donna Inez; 'this is, surely, not a
short way?'

"'Oh, I wished to make my adieux to my old friends the swans. You know I go
to-morrow.'

"'Ah, that's true,' added she. 'I'd quite forgotten it.'

"This speech was not very encouraging; but as I felt myself in for the
battle, I was not going to retreat at the skirmish. 'Now or never,' thought
I. I'll not tell you what I said. I couldn't, if I would. It is only with
a pretty woman upon one's arm; it is only when stealing a glance at her
bright eyes, as you bend beyond the border of her bonnet,--that you know
what it is to be eloquent. Watching the changeful color of her cheek with
a more anxious heart than ever did mariner gaze upon the fitful sky above
him, you pour out your whole soul in love; you leave no time for doubt, you
leave no space for reply. The difficulties that shoot across her mind you
reply to ere she is well conscious of them; and when you feel her hand
tremble, or see her eyelids fall, like the leader of a storming party when
the guns slacken in their fire, you spring boldly forward in the breach,
and blind to every danger around you, rush madly on, and plant your
standard upon the walls."

"I hope you allow the vanquished the honors of war," said I, interrupting.

Without noticing my observation, he continued:--

"I was on my knee before her, her hand passively resting in mine, her eyes
bent _upon_ me softly and tearfully--"

"The game was your own, in fact."

"You shall hear.

"'Have we stood long