se you should ever chance in your wide round of
acquaintance to fall in with a Madame or Mademoiselle Duval of about the
age of forty, or a year or so less, to let me know; and you did fall in
with two ladies of that name, but they were not the right one, not the
person whom my friend begged me to discover; both much too young."

"Eh bien, mon cher. If you will come with me to the bal champetre in
the Champs Elysees to-night, I can show you a third Madame Duval,--her
Christian name is Louise, too, of the age you mention,--though she does
her best to look younger, and is still very handsome. You said your
Duval was handsome. It was only last evening that I met this lady at a
soiree given by Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, coryphee distinguee, in
love with young Rameau."

"In love with young Rameau? I am very glad to hear it. He returns the
love?"

"I suppose so. He seems very proud of it. But apropos of Madame Duval,
she has been long absent from Paris, just returned, and looking out for
conquests. She says she has a great penchant for the English; promises
me to be at this ball. Come."

"Hearty thanks, my dear Lemercier. I am at your service."

CHAPTER IX.

The bal champetre was gay and brilliant, as such festal scenes are at
Paris. A lovely night in the midst of May, lamps below and stars above;
the society mixed, of course. Evidently, when Graham has singled out
Frederic Lemercier from all his acquaintances at Paris to conjoin with
the official aid of M. Renard in search of the mysterious lady, he had
conjectured the probability that she might be found in the Bohemian
world so familiar to Frederic; if not as an inhabitant, at least as an
explorer. Bohemia was largely represented at the bal champetre, but not
without a fair sprinkling of what we call the "respectable classes,"
especially English and Americans, who brought their wives there to take
care of them. Frenchmen, not needing such care, prudently left their
wives at home. Among the Frenchmen of station were the Comte de Passy
and the Vicomte de Breze.

On first entering the gardens, Graham's eye was attracted and dazzled
by a brilliant form. It was standing under a festoon of flowers extended
from tree to tree, and a gas jet opposite shone full upon the face,--the
face of a girl in all the freshness of youth. If the freshness owed
anything to art, the art was so well disguised that it seemed nature.
The beauty of the countenance was Hebe-like, joyou