aid:

"Poor little Fairy! that is the best and most serious thing in the way
of friendship, protection and guardianship that I have had during my
life. That butterfly acted as my godmother. Do you wonder now at the
zigzags, the erratic flights of my mind? Lucky for me that I have clung
to her."

She added abruptly, with joyful warmth:

"Ah! Minerva, Minerva, I am very glad that you came to-night. You
mustn't leave me alone so long again, you see. I need to have an upright
mind like yours by my side, to see one true face amid all the masks
that surround me. But you're fearfully bourgeois all the same," she
added laughingly, "and a provincial to boot. But never mind! you are the
man that I most enjoy looking at all the same. And I believe that my
liking for you is due mainly to one thing. You remind me of some one who
was the dearest friend of my youth, a serious, sensible little creature
like yourself, bound fast to the commonplace side of existence, but
mingling with it the element of idealism which we artists put aside for
the benefit of our work alone. Some things that you say seem to me to
come from her lips. You have a mouth built on the same antique model. Is
that what makes your words alike? I don't know about that, but you
certainly do resemble each other. I'll show you."

As she sat opposite him at the table laden with sketches and albums, she
began to draw as she talked, her face bending over the paper, her
unmanageable curls shading her shapely little head. She was no longer
the beautiful crouching monster, with the frowning anxious face,
lamenting her own destiny; but a woman, a true woman, who loves and
seeks to charm. Paul forgot all his suspicions then, in presence of such
sincerity and grace. He was on the point of speaking, of pleading with
her. It was the decisive moment. But the door opened and the little
servant appeared. Monsieur le Duc had sent to ask if Mademoiselle were
still suffering from her sick headache.

"Just as much as ever," she said testily.

When the servant had gone, there was a moment's silence between them, a
freezing pause. Paul had risen. She went on with her sketch, her head
still bent.

He walked away a few steps, then returned to the table and asked gently,
astonished to find that he was so calm:

"Was it the Duc de Mora who was to dine here?"

"Yes--I was bored--a day of spleen. Such days are very bad for me."

"Was the duchess to come?"

"The duchess? No. I don't