“Do not let me fall; my head whirls!”

“Fear not,” I replied; “I am holding you, and the spirit of the gulf shall not have you.”

“Ouf!  What an insane idea, to climb like cats over this old pile of stones!” cried Alfred, who had finally arrived, dragging after him Madame Taverneau, who with her shawl looked like a poppy in a corn-field.  We left the tower and gained our boat.  Louise threw me a tearful and grateful glance, and seated herself by Madame Taverneau.  A tug-boat passed us; we hailed it; it threw us a rope, and in a few hours we were at Pont de l’Arche.

This is a faithful account of our expedition; it is nothing, and yet a great deal.  It is sufficient to show me that I possess some influence over Louise; that my look fascinates her, my voice affects her, my touch agitates her; for one moment I held her trembling against my heart; she did not repulse me.  It is true that by a little feminine Jesuitism, common enough, she might ascribe all this to vertigo, a sort of vertigo common to youth and love, which has turned more heads than all the precipices of Mount Blanc!

What a strange creature is Louise!  An inexplicable mixture of acute intelligence and virgin modesty, displaying at the same time an ignorance and information never imagined.  These piquant contrasts make me admire her all the more.  The day after to-morrow Madame Taverneau is going on business to Rouen.  Louise will be alone, and I intend to repeat the donjon scene, with improvements and deprived of the inopportune appearance of Madame Taverneau’s yellow shawl and the luckless Alfred’s green hunting-dress.  What delicious dreams will visit me to-night in my hammock at Richeport!

My next letter will begin, I hope, with this triumphant line of the Chevalier de Bertin: 

  “Elle est a moi, divinites du Pinde!”

Good-bye, my dear Roger.  I wish you good luck in your search.  Since you have once seen Irene, she cannot wear Gyges’ ring.  You may meet her again; but if you have to make your way through six Boyars, three Moldavians, eleven bronze statues, ten check-sellers, crush a multitude of King Charles spaniels, upset a crowd of fruit-stands, go straight as a bullet towards your beauty; seize her by the tip of her wing, politely but firmly, like a gendarme; for the Prince Roger de Monbert must not be the plaything of a capricious Parisian heiress.

EDGAR DE MEILHAN.

XIV.

IRENE DE CHATEAUDUN to MME. LA VICOMTESSE DE BRAIMES;
Hotel de la Prefecture, Grenoble (Isere).

PONT DE L’ARCHE, June 18th 18—.