d La Valliere and Louis tripped mincingly forward to prove that after
all they were Morenita and Montferiot, the darlings of their dear Paris,
and utterly content with their exclusively Parisian reputation. Three
times they came forward. And then the applause ceased, for Paris is not
Naples, and it is not Madrid, and the red curtain definitely hid the
stage, and the theatre hummed with animated chatter as elegant as Diaz'
music, and my ear, that loves the chaste vivacity of the French tongue,
was caressed on every side by its cadences.

'This is the very heart of civilization,' I said to myself. 'And even in
the forest I could not breathe more freely.'

I stared up absently at Benjamin Constant's blue ceiling, meretricious
and still adorable, expressive of the delicious decadence of Paris, and
my eyes moistened because the world is so beautiful in such various ways.

Then the door of the _baignoire_ opened. It was Diaz himself who
appeared. He had not forgotten me in the excitements of the stage and
the dressing-rooms. He put his hand lightly on my shoulder, and I
glanced at him.

'Well?' he murmured, and gave me a box of bonbons elaborately tied with
rich ribbons.

And I murmured, 'Well?'

The glory of his triumph was upon him. But he understood why my eyes were
wet, and his fingers moved soothingly on my shoulder.

'You won't come round?' he asked. 'Both Villedo and Morenita are dying to
meet you.'

I shook my head, smiling.

'You're satisfied?'

'More than satisfied,' I answered. 'The thing is wonderful.'

'I think it's rather charming,' he said. 'By the way, I've just had an
offer from New York for it, and another from Rome.'

I nodded my appreciation.

'You don't want anything?'

'Nothing, thanks,' I said, opening the box of bonbons, 'except these.
Thanks so much for thinking of them.'

'Well--'

And he left me again.

In the second act the legend--has not the tale of La Valliere acquired
almost the quality of a legend?--grew in persuasiveness and in
magnificence. It was the hour of La Valliere's unwilling ascendancy, and
it foreboded also her fall. The situations seemed to me to be poignantly
beautiful, especially that in which La Valliere and Montespan and the
Queen found themselves together. And Morenita had perceived my meaning
with such a sure intuition. I might say that she showed me what I had
meant. Diaz, too, had given to my verse a voice than which it appeared
impossible that anythi