you are telling
a falsehood."

"Nay, listen to me," said Charles, "you know my cartoons by Raphael; you
know whether I care for them or not; the whole world envies me their
possession, as you well know also; my father got Vandyck to purchase
them. Would you like me to send them to your house this very day?"

"Oh! no," replied the young girl; "pray keep them yourself, sire; my
house is far too small to accommodate such visitors."

"In that case you shall have Hampton Court to put the cartoons in."

"Be less generous, sire, and learn to love a little while longer, that
is all I have to ask you."

"I shall never cease to love you; is not that enough?"

"You are laughing, sire."

"Do you wish me to weep, then?"

"No; but I should like to see you a little more melancholy."

"Thank Heaven, I have been so long enough; fourteen years of exile,
poverty, and misery, I think I may well regard it is a debt discharged;
besides, melancholy makes people look so plain."

"Far from that, for look at the young Frenchman."

"What! the Vicomte de Bragelonne! are you smitten too! By Heaven, they
will all become mad about him one after the other; but he, on the
contrary, has a reason for being melancholy."

"Why so?"

"Oh! indeed! you wish me to betray state secrets, do you?"

"If I wish it, you must do it, since you told me you were quite ready to
do everything I wished."

"Well, then, he is bored in his own country. Does that satisfy you?"

"Bored?"

"Yes, a proof that he is a simpleton; I allow him to fall in love with
Miss Mary Grafton, and he feels bored. Can you believe it?"

"Very good; it seems then, that if you were to find Miss Lucy Stewart
indifferent to you, you would console yourself by falling in love with
Miss Mary Grafton."

"I don't say that; in the first place, you know that Mary Grafton does
not care for me; besides, a man can only console himself for a lost
affection by the discovery of a new one. Again, however, I repeat, the
question is not of myself, but of that young man. One might almost be
tempted to call the girl he has left behind him a Helen--a Helen before
her introduction to Paris, of course."

"He has left some one, then?"

"That is to say, some one has left him."

"Poor follow! so much the worse!"

"What do you mean by 'so much the worse'?"

"Why not? why did he leave?"

"Do you think it was of his own wish or will that he left?"

"Was he obliged to leave, then?"

"He left