een velvet sofa,
too scared to think of sleeping.

It was a long and weary night for them.

At half-past six in the morning they were informed that the gates were
open and that people could now enter Antibes.

They set out for the city, but failed to find their abandoned valises on
the road.

When they passed through the gates of the city, still somewhat anxious,
the Commandant de Carmelin, with sly glance and mustache curled up, came
himself to look at them and question them.

Then he bowed to them politely, excusing himself for having caused them a
bad night. But he had to carry out orders.

The people of Antibes were scared to death. Some spoke of a surprise
planned by the Italians, others of the landing of the prince imperial and
others again believed that there was an Orleanist conspiracy. The truth
was suspected only later, when it became known that the battalion of the
commandant had been sent away, to a distance and that Monsieur de
Carmelin had been severely punished.

Monsieur Martini had finished his story. Madame Parisse returned, her
promenade being ended. She passed gravely near me, with her eyes fixed on
the Alps, whose summits now gleamed rosy in the last rays of the setting
sun.

I longed to speak to her, this poor, sad woman, who would ever be
thinking of that night of love, now long past, and of the bold man who
for the sake of a kiss from her had dared to put a city into a state of
siege and to compromise his whole future.

And to-day he had probably forgotten her, if he did not relate this
audacious, comical and tender farce to his comrades over their cups.

Had she seen him again? Did she still love him? And I thought: Here is an
instance of modern love, grotesque and yet heroic. The Homer who should
sing of this new Helen and the adventure of her Menelaus must be gifted
with the soul of a Paul de Kock. And yet the hero of this deserted woman
was brave, daring, handsome, strong as Achilles and more cunning than
Ulysses.

MADEMOISELLE FIFI

Major Graf Von Farlsberg, the Prussian commandant, was reading his
newspaper as he lay back in a great easy-chair, with his booted feet on
the beautiful marble mantelpiece where his spurs had made two holes,
which had grown deeper every day during the three months that he had been
in the chateau of Uville.

A cup of coffee was smoking on a small inlaid table, which was stained
with liqueur, burned by cigars, notched by the penknife of the v