“You, who take her part,” she said to Mademoiselle Roguin, “watch her carefully, and you will see how she spends her time.”

Ginevra was, therefore, observed with diabolical attention.  They listened to her songs, they watched her glances.  At times, when she supposed that no one saw her, a dozen pairs of eyes were furtively upon her.  Thus enlightened, the girls were able to interpret truly the emotions that crossed the features of the beautiful Italian,—­her gestures, the peculiar tones in which she hummed a tune, and the attention with which they saw her listen to sounds which only she could hear through the partition.

By the end of a week, Laure was the only one of Servin’s fifteen pupils who had resisted the temptation of looking at Luigi through the crevice of the partition; and she, through an instinct of weakness, still defended her beautiful friend.  Mademoiselle Roguin endeavored to make her wait on the staircase after the class dispersed, that she might prove to her the intimacy of Ginevra and the young man by entering the studio and surprising them together.  But Laure refused to condescend to an act of espial which no curiosity could justify, and she consequently became the object of much reprobation.

Before long Mademoiselle Thirion made known that she thought it improper to attend the classes of a painter whose opinions were tainted with patriotism and Bonapartism (in those days the terms were synonymous), and she ceased her attendance at the studio.  But, although she herself forgot Ginevra, the harm she had planted bore fruit.  Little by little, the other young girls revealed to their mothers the strange events which were happening at the studio.  One day Matilde Roguin did not come; the next day another girl was missing, and so on, till the last three or four who were left came no more.  Ginevra and Laure, her little friend, were the sole occupants of the deserted studio for three or four days.

Ginevra did not observe this falling off, nor ask the cause of her companions’ absence.  As soon as she had invented means of communication with Luigi she lived in the studio in a delightful solitude, alone amid her own world, thinking only of the officer and the dangers that threatened him.  Though a sincere admirer of noble characters that never betray their political faiths, she nevertheless urged Luigi to submit himself to the royal authority, that he might be released from his present life and remain in France.  But to this he would not consent.  If passions are born and nourished, as they say, under the influence of romantic causes, never did so many circumstances of that kind concur in uniting two young souls by one and the same sentiment.  The friendship of Ginevra for Luigi and that of Luigi for Ginevra made more progress in a month than a friendship in society would make in ten years.  Adversity is the touchstone of character.  Ginevra was able, therefore, to study Luigi, to know him; and before long they mutually