the countess, "do it calmly and advisedly; I do not like rash
conduct; you will not please me by taking open steps. These Thuilliers
are not really bad at heart; they humiliated you without knowing that
they did so; their world is not yours. Is that their fault? Loosen the
tie between you, but do not violently break it. And, above all, reflect.
Your conversion to my beliefs is of recent date. What man is certain of
what his heart will say to him to-morrow?"

"Madame," said la Peyrade, "I am that man. We men of Southern blood do
not love as you say a Frenchwoman loves."

"But," said the countess, with a charming smile, "I thought it was
hatred we were talking of."

"Ah, madame," cried the barrister, "explained and understood as it has
been, that word is still a thing that hurts me. Tell me rather, not that
you love me, but that the words you deigned to say to me at our first
interview were indeed the expression of your thoughts."

"My friend," said the countess, dwelling on the word; "one of your
moralists has said: 'There are persons who say, _that is_ or _that is
not_.' Do me the favor to count me among such persons."

So saying, she held out her hand to her suitor with a charming gesture
of modesty and grace. La Peyrade, quite beside himself, darted upon that
beautiful hand and devoured it with kisses.

"Enough, child!" said the countess, gently freeing her imprisoned
fingers; "adieu now, soon to meet again! Adieu! My headache, I think,
has disappeared."

La Peyrade picked up his hat, and seemed about to rush from the
apartment; but at the door he turned and cast upon the handsome creature
a look of tenderness. The countess made him, with her head, a graceful
gesture of adieu; then, seeing that la Peyrade was inclined to return to
her, she raised her forefinger as a warning to control himself and go.

La Peyrade turned and left the apartment.

CHAPTER VII. HOW TO SHUT THE DOOR IN PEOPLE'S FACES

On the staircase la Peyrade stopped to exhale, if we may so express it,
the happiness of which his heart was full. The words of the countess,
the ingenious preparation she had made to put him on the track of her
sentiments, seemed to him the guarantee of her sincerity, and he left
her full of faith.

Possessed by that intoxication of happy persons which shows itself in
their gestures, their looks, their very gait, and sometimes in actions
not authorized by their common-sense, after pausing a moment, as we ha