“You can say Frenchman, now,” returned Madame Clemenceau; “he is one, and my cousin.  The story is long and involved and will keep to another day.  It is he I married.”

“Your husband!” he exclaimed, and she nodded apologetically.

“Then,” sighed he, “my dream ends here—­on that day when we last met.”

“A learned man has said, in a lecture here, that dreams can be repeated and continued, by an effort of the will.  My advice to you is to try it.”

“Do not jest with me!  You can see—­you can be sure if you will but question—­that I narrowly escaped the State’s prison for helping you.  Spite of all, I can love no other woman but you—­”

She held up her closed fan and touched his lips with the feathery edging.

“You must not talk so—­at least—­here,” she said, with her glance in contradiction to her words.  “I am happy, or contented, strictly speaking, in my home, and as soon as my husband realizes one or two of the ideas over which he is musing, happiness must be mine.  A success in art will drag him forth; he must go to Paris to be feasted in the salons and lionized in the conversaziones.”

And her eyes blazed as she figured herself presiding at an assemblage of artists and patrons.

“Pardon me,” said the viscount-baron.  “I am afraid I add to your worry.  I see that you are pining for the sphere to which your grace and charms entice you.  I will do anything you order; but yet, since I, too, am an exile, and for your sake, pray do not ask me not to see you and speak of love.”

“It must be thus,” she replied, with half-closed eyes, turning away abruptly, as if she feared her virtuous resolution were failing.  “Let our parting be forever!”

“Forever!” he repeated, following her into the window alcove, although thirty pairs of eyes regarded them.  “You cannot mean that.  At least, I deserve—­have earned—­your friendship by what I have undergone for you.  Let me have a word of hope!  Though divorce is not allowed in this country, death befalls any man, for while your statisticians figure out that the married live longest, they do not assert that they are immortal.  Clemenceau dead, his widow may remarry.  You say he is an enthusiast—­one of those college-growths which run to seed without any fruit.  I thought the contrary from the way he rode my horse and handled the pistols.  But, being an enthusiast, how can you expect to do anything but vegetate?  You will always be poor, for, if the man’s ideas bore fruit, he would only sink the gains in fresh enterprises.  These artists are always unthrifty, and they should wed their laundresses or their cooks.  But I—­though they have tied up my German revenue, and I have been practically banished—­enjoy a tolerable return from my property in this Empire.  I have been offered a very handsome present if I wholly transfer allegiance to the Napoleons.  Would you not like to have the entre to the Empress’s coterie