beauty of the gold service, a present from a
monomaniac lord, for whom Conti had composed a few ballads on _ideas_ of
the lord, who afterwards published them as his own!

Calyste listened entranced to the witty speeches of his idol, whose
great object was to amuse him, until she grew angry and wept when he
rose to leave her. He thought he had been there only half an hour, but
it was past three before he reached home. His handsome English horse, a
present from the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, was so bathed in sweat that
it looked as though it had been driven through the sea. By one of those
chances which all jealous women prepare for themselves, Sabine was at
a window which looked on the court-yard, impatient at Calyste's
non-return, uneasy without knowing why. The condition of the horse with
its foaming mouth surprised her.

"Where can he have come from?"

The question was whispered in her ear by that power which is not exactly
consciousness, nor devil, nor angel; which sees, forebodes, shows us
the unseen, and creates belief in mental beings, creatures born of our
brains, going and coming and living in the world invisible of ideas.

"Where do you come from, dear angel?" Sabine said to Calyste, meeting
him on the first landing of the staircase. "Abd-el-Kader is nearly
foundered. You told me you would be gone but a moment, and I have been
waiting for you these three hours."

"Well, well," thought Calyste, who was making progress in dissimulation,
"I must get out of it by a present--Dear little mother," he said aloud,
taking her round the waist with more cajolery than he would have used if
he had not been conscious of guilt, "I see that it is quite impossible
to keep a secret, however innocent, from the woman who loves us--"

"Well, don't tell secrets on the staircase," she said, laughing. "Come
in."

In the middle of a salon which adjoined their bedroom, she caught sight
in a mirror of Calyste's face, on which, not aware that it could be
seen, he allowed his real feelings and his weariness to appear.

"Now for your secret?" she said, turning round.

"You have shown such heroism as a nurse," he said, "that the heir
presumptive of the Guenics is dearer to me than ever, and I wanted
to give you a surprise, precisely like any bourgeois of the rue Saint
Denis. They are finishing for you at this moment a dressing-table at
which true artists have worked, and my mother and aunt Zephirine have
contributed."

Sabine claspe