d you at home when I
called some weeks ago, and no less so to have been out when you had the
complaisance to return my visit."

"At all events," replied the Englishman, "let me not lose the
opportunity of improving our acquaintance which now offers. It is true
that our friend Lemercier, catching sight of me in the Rue de Rivoli,
stopped his coupe and carried me off for a promenade in the Bois. The
fineness of the day tempted us to get out of his carriage as the Bois
came in sight. But if you are going back to Paris I relinquish the Bois
and offer myself as your companion."

Frederic (the name is so familiarly English that the reader might think
me pedantic did I accentuate it as French) looked from one to the other
of his two friends, half amused and half angry.

"And am I to be left alone to achieve a conquest, in which, if I
succeed, I shall change into hate and envy the affection of my two best
friends? Be it so.

"' Un veritable amant ne connait point d'amis.'"

"I do not comprehend your meaning," said the Marquis, with a compressed
lip and a slight frown.

"Bah!" cried Frederic; "come, franc jeu; cards on the table. M. Gram
Varn was going into the Bois at my suggestion on the chance of having
another look at the pearl-coloured angel; and you, Rochebriant, can't
deny that you were going into the Bois for the same object."

"One may pardon an enfant terrible," said the Englishman, laughing, "but
an ami terrible should be sent to the galleys. Come, Marquis, let us
walk back and submit to our fate. Even were the lady once more visible,
we have no chance of being observed by the side of a Lovelace so
accomplished and so audacious!"

"Adieu, then, recreants: I go alone. Victory or death." The Parisian
beckoned his coachman, entered his carriage, and with a mocking grimace
kissed his hand to the companions thus deserting or deserted.

Rochebriant touched the Englishman's arm, and said, "Do you think that
Lemercier could be impertinent enough to accost that lady?"

"In the first place," returned the Englishman, "Lemercier himself tells
me that the lady has for several weeks relinquished her walks in the
Bois, and the probability is, therefore, that he will not have the
opportunity to accost her. In the next place, it appears that when she
did take her solitary walk, she did not stray far from her carriage, and
was in reach of the protection of her laquais and coachman. But to speak
honestly, do you, who kn