late in life a comparatively lasting caprice; during nearly five years
she had flattered herself that she had found what she sought. Alas! for
the first time she had been abandoned, forsaken, and that before she had
herself grown tired of her fancy. This desertion had inflicted a sharp
wound on her pride; she had conceived an implacable hatred for the
faithless one, and then she had forgotten him. She had plunged into
the natural sciences, she had made dissections--it was her way of being
avenged. She held very advanced ideas; she believed in the most radical
of the doctrines of evolution; she deemed it a clearly demonstrated fact
that man is a development of the monkey, the monkey of the monad. She
profoundly despised any one who permitted himself to doubt this. She did
not count melancholy; to analyze or dissect everything, that was her way
of being happy.

During their common sojourn at Ostend, Mme. de Lorcy had gained the good
graces of the Princess Gulof through the dexterity with which she had
dressed the wounds of Moufflard, her lapdog, whose paw had been injured
by some awkward individual. She had been quite pleased with Mme. de
Lorcy, her sympathy and her kindly services, and she had bestowed her
most amiable attentions upon her. Mme. de Lorcy had done her best to
respond to her advances; but she found herself revolted by this old
magpie whose prattling never ceased, and whose chief delight was in the
recital of the secret chronicles of every capital of Europe; Mme. de
Lorcy, in fact, soon grew disgusted with her cosmopolitan gossip and her
physiology; she found her cynical and evil-minded. In meeting her at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts, her first impulse was to evade her; but suddenly
she changed her mind. For some weeks past she had been governed by a
fixed idea, about which all else revolved; an inspiration came over her,
which doubtless fell directly from the skies.

"Princess Gulof," said she to herself, "has passed her life in running
around the world; her real home is a railroad-car; there is not a large
city where she has failed to make a sojourn; she is acquainted with the
whole world: is it not possible that she knows Count Larinski?"

Mme. de Lorcy retraced her steps, cut her way through the crowd,
succeeded in approaching the princess, and, taking her by the arm,
exclaimed: "Ah! is it you, princess! How is Moufflard?"

The princess turned her head, regarded her fixedly a moment, and then
pressing he