yellow lines and red patches; the
paleness of her cheeks seemed every now and then to turn green. Hoping
to hide her despair from her sisters, she would laugh as she pointed out
some ridiculous dress or passer-by; but her laughter was spasmodic. She
was more deeply hurt by their unspoken compassion than by any satirical
comments for which she might have revenged herself. She exhausted her
wit in trying to engage them in a conversation, in which she tried to
expend her fury in senseless paradoxes, heaping on all men engaged in
trade the bitterest insults and witticisms in the worst taste.

On getting home, she had an attack of fever, which at first assumed
a somewhat serious character. By the end of a month the care of her
parents and of the physician restored her to her family.

Every one hoped that this lesson would be severe enough to subdue
Emilie's nature; but she insensibly fell into her old habits and threw
herself again into the world of fashion. She declared that there was no
disgrace in making a mistake. If she, like her father, had a vote in the
Chamber, she would move for an edict, she said, by which all merchants,
and especially dealers in calico, should be branded on the forehead,
like Berri sheep, down to the third generation. She wished that none but
nobles should have the right to wear the antique French costume, which
was so becoming to the courtiers of Louis XV. To hear her, it was a
misfortune for France, perhaps, that there was no outward and visible
difference between a merchant and a peer of France. And a hundred more
such pleasantries, easy to imagine, were rapidly poured out when any
accident brought up the subject.

But those who loved Emilie could see through all her banter a tinge of
melancholy. It was clear that Maximilien Longueville still reigned over
that inexorable heart. Sometimes she would be as gentle as she had been
during the brief summer that had seen the birth of her love; sometimes,
again, she was unendurable. Every one made excuses for her inequality of
temper, which had its source in sufferings at once secret and known to
all. The Comte de Kergarouet had some influence over her, thanks to his
increased prodigality, a kind of consolation which rarely fails of its
effect on a Parisian girl.

The first ball at which Mademoiselle de Fontaine appeared was at the
Neapolitan ambassador's. As she took her place in the first quadrille
she saw, a few yards away from her, Maximilien Lo