n this case; yet it eludes me."

Dumaresque raised his brows and smiled as one who invites further
confidences. But he received instead a keen glance from the old eyes,
and a question:

"Loris, who is the man?"

"What! You ask me?"

"There is no other to ask; you know all the men she has met; you are
not a fool, and an artist's eye is trained to observe."

"It has not served me in this case, my god-mother."

"Which means you will not tell. I shall suspect it is yourself if you
conspire to keep it from me."

"Pouf! When it is myself I shall be so eager to let it be known that
no one will have time to ask a question."

"That is good," she said approvingly. "I must rest now. I have talked
so long; but a word, Loris; she likes you, she trusts you, and
that--well, that goes far."

And all the morning her assurance made for him hours of brightness.
The stranger of Fontainbleau had drifted into the background, and
should never have real place in their lives. She liked and trusted
_him_; and that would go far.

He was happy in imagining the happiness that might be, forgetful of
another lover, one among the poets, who avowed that the happiness of
the future was the only real happiness of the world.

He was pleased that his god-mother had confided to him these little
facts of family history. He remembered how intensely eager the dowager
had been for Alain's marriage, years before, that there might be an
heir; and he remembered, in part, the cause--her detestation of a
female relative whose son would inherit the Marquisate should a son be
born to her, and Alain die without children. He could see how eagerly
the dowager would have consented to a marriage with even the poorest
of poor relations if both the Marquisate and Alain might be saved by
it.

Poor Alain! He remembered the story of why he had remained single; a
story of love forbidden, and of a woman who entered a convent because,
in the world, she could not live with her lover, and would not live
with the man whose name she bore. It was an old story; she had died
long ago, but Alain had remained faithful. It had been the one great
passion he had known of, outside of a romance, and the finale of it
was that the slight girlish protegee was mistress of his name and
fortune, though her heart had never beat the faster for his glance.

And the Greek blood doubtless accounted for her readiness of speech in
different tongues; they were so naturally linguists--the Gre