one little
circumstance that you do not disguise your ardour. I read in your eyes,'
she said as calmly as if she were announcing a trifle of news she had
read in the morning's papers, 'all the fervour of your mind, and I do
not wish to read it there--that is to say, I do not wish my little maid
to read it there.'

'Well,' said Paul, 'I will try. If you will let me say what I want to
say, I will keep a straight face over it.'

'Within measure,' said the lady, with a passing touch of gaiety--'within
measure.'

'Most things have their measure,' Paul answered, 'until you come to the
crucial matters of the heart, and they go beyond measure.'

The maid broke in at this point to ask if Madame la Baronne would be
served.

'At once,' said the mistress, and waved Paul to his place. He bowed and
took it. The maid served a number of elegant kickshaws, and the grave
serving-man who had superintended the dinner-table on the previous
evening entered with a bottle of hock in a cradle and stealthily
withdrew.

'You gave me but little time,' said Gertrude, 'to prepare for you, but
I think you will find that we have done very well. Try that hock, M.
Paul.'

Paul looked down his nose, and in a dry-at-dust voice recited the first
verse of old Ben's immortal lyric. His voice quavered a little on the
last lines--

'But might I of Jove's nectar sip, I would not change from thine!' and
Gertrude broke in with a laugh and an airy little wave of her hand.

'Now, my dear M. Paul,' she said, 'you are really and truly admirable.
That is quite perfect, and if you will promise me, upon your sacred word
of honour as a man, not to betray me by a word or a look, I will tell
you something I never told you before. I have never admired you so much,
or loved you so dearly, as I do at this hour. You must believe me,' she
continued, pushing her plate away and beckoning the maid with a slight
backward gesture of the head, 'I hate this tone of persiflage, but what
is there left for us if we would be blamelessly alone, and yet speak our
hearts to each other?'

'Madame,' said Paul, 'I find it a masterstroke of genius.' Their
tones were ice on both sides, but their words were fire. The maid most
probably thought her mistress bored, and the guest a dullard. She had
seemed at first interested in the new arrival, but she lapsed now into
an attitude of indifference, and the dangerous pretence went on. In
this intoxicating whirl of passion, when interchange