know her."

"Well, if I were in your place, I would never receive in my house, at my
table, a married man whose wife I did not meet in society. You complain
of being abandoned; why do you abandon yourself? When one is without
reproach, one must keep oneself above suspicion. Do I offend you?"

"No, no, scold me, Minerva. I like your morality. It is frank and
straightforward; it doesn't squint like Jenkins'. As I told you, I need
some one to guide me."

She held before him the sketch she had just finished.

"See! there's the friend of whom I spoke to you. A deep, sure affection
which I was foolish enough to throw away, like the wasteful idiot I am.
I always used to invoke her memory in moments of perplexity, when there
was some question to be decided or some sacrifice to be made. I would
say to myself: 'What will she think about it?' as we pause in our work
to think of some great man, of one of our masters. You must fill that
place for me. Will you?"

Paul did not answer. He was looking at Aline's portrait. It was she, it
was she to the life, her regular profile, her kindly, laughing mouth,
and the long curl caressing the slender neck. Ah! all the Ducs de Mora
on earth might come now. Felicia no longer existed for him.

Poor Felicia, a creature endowed with superior powers, was much like
those sorceresses who weave and ravel the destinies of others without
the power to accomplish anything for their own happiness.

"Will you give me this sketch?" he said almost inaudibly, in a voice
that trembled with emotion.

"Very gladly; she is pretty, isn't she? Ah! if you should happen to meet
her, love her, marry her. She is worth more than all the rest. But,
failing her, failing her--"

And the beautiful tamed sphinx looked up at him with her great tearful,
laughing eyes, whose enigma was no longer insoluble.

XIV.

THE EXHIBITION.

"Superb!"

"A tremendous success. Barye never did anything as fine."

"And the bust of the Nabob! What a marvellous likeness! I tell you,
Constance Crenmitz is happy. See her trotting about."

"What! is that La Crenmitz, that little old woman in a fur cape? I
supposed she was dead twenty years ago."

Oh! no; on the contrary, she is very much alive. Enchanted, rejuvenated
by the triumph of her goddaughter, who is decidedly _the_ success of the
Exhibition, she glides through the crowd of artists and people of
fashion grouped around the two points where Felicia's contributions