im."

"Ah! that's your fixed idea. But I am getting to know Monsieur de Cymier
pretty well."

"You have betrayed yourself," cried Giselle, with indignation. "Monsieur
de Cymier!"

"Monsieur de Cymier is coming to our house on Saturday evening, and
I must get up a Spanish song that Madame Strahlberg has taught me, to
charm his ears and those of other people. Oh! I can do it very well.
Won't you come and hear me play the castanets, if Monsieur Enguerrand
can spare you? There is a young Polish pianist who is to play our
accompaniment. Ah, there is nothing like a Polish pianist to play
Chopin! He is charming, poor young man! an exile, and in poverty; but he
is cared for by those ladies, who take him everywhere. That is the sort
of life I should like--the life of Madame Strahlberg--to be a young
widow, free to do what I pleased."

"She may be a widow--but some say she is divorced."

"Oh! is it you who repeat such naughty scandals, Giselle? Where shall
charity take refuge in this world if not in your heart? I am going--your
seriousness may be catching. Kiss me before I go."

"No," said Madame de Talbrun, turning her head away.

After this she asked herself whether she ought not to discourage Fred.
She could not resolve on doing so, yet she could not tell him what was
false; but by eluding the truth with that ability which kind-hearted
women can always show when they try to avoid inflicting pain, she
succeeded in leaving the young man hope enough to stimulate his
ambition.

CHAPTER XI. FRED ASKS A QUESTION

Time, whatever may be said of it by the calendars, is not to be measured
by days, weeks, and months in all cases; expectation, hope, happiness
and grief have very different ways of counting hours, and we know from
our own experience that some are as short as a minute, and others as
long as a century. The love or the suffering of those who can tell just
how long they have suffered, or just how long they have been in love, is
only moderate and reasonable.

Madame d'Argy found the two lonely years she passed awaiting the return
of her son, who was winning his promotion to the rank of ensign, so
long, that it seemed to her as if they never would come to an end. She
had given a reluctant consent to his notion of adopting the navy as a
profession, thinking that perhaps, after all, there might be no harm
in allowing her dear boy to pass the most dangerous period of his youth
under strict discipline, but she coul