Clara, to whom he is as devoted as a mother, wrote to
me that he had fallen in love this summer with a very pretty girl; but I
have had no further news of the affair. Would you believe that the poor
boy used to get up at five in the morning, and went off to settle his
business that he might be back by four o'clock in the country where the
lady was? In fact, he ruined a very nice thoroughbred that I had just
given him. Forgive my chatter, mademoiselle; I have but just come home
from Germany. For a year I have heard no decent French, I have been
weaned from French faces, and satiated with Germans, to such a degree
that, I believe, in my patriotic mania, I could talk to the chimeras on
a French candlestick. And if I talk with a lack of reserve unbecoming
in a diplomatist, the fault is yours, mademoiselle. Was it not you who
pointed out my brother? When he is the theme I become inexhaustible. I
should like to proclaim to all the world how good and generous he is. He
gave up no less than a hundred thousand francs a year, the income from
the Longueville property."

If Mademoiselle de Fontaine had the benefit of these important
revelations, it was partly due to the skill with which she continued to
question her confiding partner from the moment when she found that he
was the brother of her scorned lover.

"And could you, without being grieved, see your brother selling muslin
and calico?" asked Emilie, at the end of the third figure of the
quadrille.

"How do you know that?" asked the attache. "Thank God, though I pour out
a flood of words, I have already acquired the art of not telling more
than I intend, like all the other diplomatic apprentices I know."

"You told me, I assure you."

Monsieur de Longueville looked at Mademoiselle de Fontaine with a
surprise that was full of perspicacity. A suspicion flashed upon him. He
glanced inquiringly from his brother to his partner, guessed everything,
clasped his hands, fixed his eyes on the ceiling, and began to laugh,
saying, "I am an idiot! You are the handsomest person here; my brother
keeps stealing glances at you; he is dancing in spite of his illness,
and you pretend not to see him. Make him happy," he added, as he led
her back to her old uncle. "I shall not be jealous, but I shall always
shiver a little at calling you my sister----"

The lovers, however, were to prove as inexorable to each other as they
were to themselves. At about two in the morning, refreshments were