nly a very fantastical idea," said the Abbe smiling. "But
if you have ever seen any of your emotions, what do they look like? I
should like to see my hasty temper sitting beside me for a minute; I
should take advantage of his being corporealized to pay him back in his
own coin, and give him a good thrashing."

"It is difficult," said the Duke gravely, "to recognize one's emotions
when brought actually face to face with them, although they have been
living in us all our lives--turning our hair gray or pulling it out;
making us stout or lean, upright or bent over. Moreover, our minor
emotions, except in cases where the medium is remarkably powerful,
outwardly express themselves to us as perfumes, or sometimes in lights.
I have reason, however, to believe I have recognized my conscience."

"I should have thought he'd have been too sleepy to move out!" laughed
the Prince.

"That just shows how wrongly one man judges another," said Octave
lazily, without earnestness, but with a certain something in his tone
that betokened he was dealing with realities. "You probably think that I
am not much troubled with a conscience; whereas the fact is that my
conscience, with a strong dash of remorse in it, is a very keen one.
Many years ago a certain episode changed the whole color and current of
my life inwardly to myself, although of course outwardly I was much the
same. Now, this episode aroused my conscience to a most extraordinary
degree, and I never 'sit' now without seeing a female figure; with a
face like that of the heroine of my episode, dressed in a queer robe,
woven of every possible color except white, who shudders and trembles as
she passes before me, holding in her arms large sheets of glass, through
which dim Bohemian glass colors pass flickering every moment."

"What a very disagreeable thing to see this weather," said the
Abbe--"everything shuddering and shaking!"

"Have you ever discovered why she goes about like the wife of a
glazier?" asked the Prince.

"For a long time I could not make out what they could be, these large
panes of glass with variegated colors passing through them; but now I
think I know."

"Well?"

"They are dreams waiting to be fitted in."

"Bravo!" cried the Abbe. "That is really a good idea! If I had only the
pen of Charles Nodier, what a charming _feuilleton_ I could write about
all this!"

Pomerantseff laid his hand affectionately on the Duke's shoulder. "_Mon
cher ami_," he said wi