to parry with false assertions and denials, which he will simply make
use of to become once more her master."

"Ah!" cried Calyste, "he does not love her. I would leave her free. True
love means a choice made anew at every moment, confirmed from day to
day. The morrow justifies the past, and swells the treasury of our
pleasures. Ah! why did he not stay away a little longer? A few days more
and he would not have found her. What brought him back?"

"The jest of a journalist," replied Camille. "His opera, on the success
of which he counted, has fallen flat. Some journalist, probably Claude
Vignon, remarked in the foyer: 'It is hard to lose fame and mistress at
the same moment,' and the speech cut him in all his vanities. Love based
on petty sentiments is always pitiless. I have questioned him; but who
can fathom a nature so false and deceiving? He appeared to be weary of
his troubles and his love,--in short, disgusted with life. He regrets
having allied himself so publicly with the marquise, and made me, in
speaking of his past happiness, a melancholy poem, which was somewhat
too clever to be true. I think he hoped to worm out of me the secret of
your love, in the midst of the joy he expected his flatteries to cause
me."

"What else?" said Calyste, watching Beatrix and Conti, who were now
coming towards them; but he listened no longer to Camille's words.

In talking with Conti, Camille had held herself prudently on the
defensive; she had betrayed neither Calyste's secret nor that of
Beatrix. The great artist was capable of treachery to every one, and
Mademoiselle des Touches warned Calyste to distrust him.

"My dear friend," she said, "this is by far the most critical moment for
you. You need caution and a sort of cleverness you do not possess; I am
afraid you will let yourself be tricked by the most wily man I have ever
known, and I can do nothing to help you."

The bell announced dinner. Conti offered his arm to Camille; Calyste
gave his to Beatrix. Camille drew back to let the marquise pass, but the
latter had found a moment in which to look at Calyste, and impress
upon him, by putting her finger on her lips, the absolute necessity of
discretion.

Conti was extremely gay during the dinner; perhaps this was only one way
of probing Madame de Rochefide, who played her part extremely ill. If
her conduct had been mere coquetry, she might have deceived even Conti;
but her new love was real, and it betrayed her. The wil