or her rapid solitary walk with her dogs through the park,
in the hope of leaving her wrath behind in the thickets with the waking
birds, or of cooling and tempering it among the dewy lawns and dripping
branches--suddenly, at a turn in the path, appeared Danjou, ready for
the attack. Dressed from head to foot in white flannels, his trousers
tucked into his boots, with a picturesque cap and a well-trimmed beard,
he was trying to find a _denouement_ for a three-act drama, to be
ready for the Francais that winter. The name was 'Appearances,' and the
subject a satire on society. Everything was written but the final scene.

[Illustration: He began to talk of his love 254]

'Well, let us try what we can do together,' said the Duchess brightly,
as she cracked the long lash of the short-handled whip with silver
whistle, which she used to call in her dogs. But the moment they turned
to walk together, he began to talk of his love, and how sad it would
be for her to live alone; and ended by offering himself, after his own
fashion, straight out and with no circumlocutions. The Duchess, with
a quick movement of pride, threw up her head, grasping her whip handle
tightly, as if to strike the insolent fellow who dared to talk to her as
he might to a super at the opera. But the insult was also a compliment,
and there was pleasure as well as anger in her blush. Danjou steadily
urged his point, and tried to dazzle her with his polished wit,
pretending to treat the matter less as a love affair than as an
intellectual partnership. A man like himself and a woman like her might
command the world.

'Many thanks, my dear Danjou; such specious reasoning is not new to me.
I am suffering from it still.' Then with a haughty wave of her hand,
which allowed no reply, she pointed out the shady path which the
dramatist was to follow, and said, 'Look for your _denouement_; I am
going in.' He stood where he was, completely disconcerted, and gazed at
her beautiful carriage as she walked away.

'Not even as zebra?' he said, in a tone of appeal.

She looked round, her black brows meeting. 'Ah, yes, you are right; the
post is vacant,' Her thoughts went to Lavaux, the base underling for
whom she had done so much, and without a smile she answered in a weary
voice, 'Zebra, if you like.'

Then she vanished behind a little group of fine yellow roses a little
overblown, whose leaves would be scattered at the first fresh breeze.

It was something to boast of