d even recover sufficient
self-possession to soften the impression of his words, she forced a
pleasant laugh, hastily rose from the sofa and stepped up to him with
both her hands extended.

"Thank you, my friend," she said, in her easiest tone; "you are not
particularly gallant, but something better and rarer--you are candid.
You are right; unless a woman is able to set the whole female sex wild
with envy and jealousy, like your beautiful unknown friend, she is not
a worthy subject for your art. I really ought to be old enough to see
that myself. But, as I said, you are partly to blame for my having hit
on such a foolish idea--the portrait of that beautiful woman had turned
my head. But now it is in its right place again, and I thank you for
your speedy cure. _Prenez que je n'aie rien dit._ That my tardy wish,
which perhaps would have been an impudent one even in earlier days,
remains our secret, I expect from your chivalry. So--your hand upon
it--and _soyons amis!_ And now, good-night. Though I am in no danger of
awakening jealousy, I am not old enough yet to be secure from malicious
gossip, and--you have already staid longer than is proper."

In the most painful confusion he attempted to stammer out a few
palliating words. But she would not listen to them, and, amid all sorts
of pretty speeches and jests, almost hustled him by main force out of
the door, which she immediately locked behind him.

No sooner did she find herself alone than her features became
transformed; the smile on her lips faded into a grimace, and a
threatening scowl appeared on her smooth forehead. She brushed from her
eyelashes the tears of angry humiliation which she had held back too
long already, and drew a long, deep breath, as if to save her heart
from suffocation. Thus she stood, near the threshold, her little hands
clinched tight, gazing motionless at the door through which the man who
had insulted her had passed out. If a passionate wish possessed the
magic power to kill, Jansen would probably have never left her house
alive.

She heard steps in the adjoining cabinet. She looked up, passed her
hands across her eyes and seized a glass of water, which she emptied at
a single draught. She was herself again. An elderly woman entered
cautiously, dressed simply and entirely in black, but with a care which
betrayed long practice in the arts of the toilet. Moreover, her manner
of speaking and carrying herself showed, at the first glance, that