“How very delightful!”

“Oh, magnificent!  Won’t you come with me?  I know a dozen pretty girls who will be delighted to be introduced to you.”

“Not to-night, thank you,” said I, laughing.

“Well, another time?”

“Yes, to be sure—­another time.”

“Well, good-night.”

“Good-night, and thank you again, a thousand times over.”

But he would not stay to hear me thank him, and was half way down the first flight before my sentence was finished.  Just as I was going back into my room, and about to close the door, he called after me from the landing.

“Hola, amigo!  When my picture is done, I mean to give a bachelor’s supper-party—­chiefly students and chicards.  Will you come?”

“Gladly.”

“Adieu, then.  I will let you know in time.”

And with this, he broke out into a fragment of Beranger, gave a cheerful good-night to Madame Bouisse in the hall, and was gone.

And now to enjoy my picture.  Now to lock the door, and trim the lamp, and place it up against a pile of books, and sit down before it in silent rapture, like a devotee before the portrait of his patron saint.  Now I can gaze, unreproved, into those eyes, and fancy they are hers.  Now press my lips, unforbidden, upon that exquisite mouth, and believe it warm.  Ah, will her eyes ever so give back the look of love in mine?  Will her lips ever suffer mine to come so near?  Would she, if she knew the treasure I possessed, be displeased that I so worshipped it?

Hanging over it thus, and suffering my thoughts to stray on at their own will and pleasure, I am startled by the fall of some heavy object in the adjoining chamber.  The fall is followed by a stifled cry, and then all is again silent.

To unlock my door and rush to hers—­to try vainly to open it—­to cry “Hortense!  Hortense! what has happened?  For Heaven’s sake, what has happened?” is the work of but an instant.

The antechamber lay between, and I remembered that she could not hear me.  I ran back, knocked against the wall, and repeated:—­

“What has happened?  Tell me what has happened?”

Again I listened, and in that interval of suspense heard her garments rustle along the ground, then a deep sigh, and then the words:—­

“Nothing serious.  I have hurt my hand.”

“Can you open the door?”

There was another long silence.

“I cannot,” she said at length, but more faintly.

“In God’s name, try!”

No answer.

“Shall I get over the balcony?”

I waited another instant, heard nothing, and then, without, further hesitation, opened my own window and climbed the iron rail that separated her balcony from mine, leaving my footsteps trampled in the snow.

I found her sitting on the floor, with her body bent forward and her head resting against the corner of a fallen bookcase.  The scattered volumes lay all about.  A half-filled portmanteau stood close by on a chair.  A travelling-cloak and a passport-case lay on the table.