wake, half asleep, with an odd wondering kind of
look in his face. My mistress at parting warned me to be particularly
watchful of him toward two in the morning. The doctor (in case anything
happened) left me a large hand bell to ring, which could easily be heard
at the house.

Restored to the society of my fair friend, I spread the supper table. A
pate, a sausage, and a few bottles of generous Moselle wine, composed our
simple meal. When persons adore each other, the intoxicating illusion of
Love transforms the simplest meal into a banquet. With immeasurable
capacities for enjoyment, we sat down to table. At the very moment when I
placed my fascinating companion in a chair, the infamous Englishman in the
next room took that occasion, of all others, to become restless and noisy
once more. He struck with his stick on the floor; he cried out, in a
delirious access of terror, "Rigobert! Rigobert!"

The sound of that lamentable voice, suddenly assailing our ears, terrified
my fair friend. She lost all her charming color in an instant. "Good
heavens!" she exclaimed. "Who is that in the next room?"

"A mad Englishman."

"An Englishman?"

"Compose yourself, my angel. I will quiet him."

The lamentable voice called out on me again, "Rigobert! Rigobert!"

My fair friend caught me by the arm. "Who is he?" she cried. "What is his
name?"

Something in her face struck me as she put that question. A spasm of
jealousy shook me to the soul. "You know him?" I said.

"His name!" she vehemently repeated; "his name!"

"Francis," I answered.

"Francis--_what_?"

I shrugged my shoulders. I could neither remember nor pronounce the
barbarous English surname. I could only tell her it began with an "R."

She dropped back into the chair. Was she going to faint? No: she
recovered, and more than recovered, her lost color. Her eyes flashed
superbly. What did it mean? Profoundly as I understand women in general, I
was puzzled by _this_ woman!

"You know him?" I repeated.

She laughed at me. "What nonsense! How should I know him? Go and quiet the
wretch."

My looking-glass was near. One glance at it satisfied me that no woman in
her senses could prefer the Englishman to Me. I recovered my self-respect.
I hastened to the Englishman's bedside.

The moment I appeared he pointed eagerly toward my room. He overwhelmed me
with a torrent of words in his own language. I made out, from his gestures
and his looks, that he had, in some inco