Discontented with himself, he entered his house.  His servant was waiting for him.  He brought him a blue envelope on a card-tray.

“A telegram for monsieur le duc.”

Rosas tore it open in a mechanical way.  It was from one of his London friends, Lord Lindsay, who having learned of Rosas’s return, sent him a pressing invitation.  If he did not hasten to Paris to welcome him, it was simply because grave political affairs demanded his presence in London.

The duke, while taking off his gloves, looked at the crumpled despatch lying under the lamp.  He was, like most travellers, superstitious.  Perhaps this despatch had arrived in the nick of time to prevent him from committing some act of folly.

But what folly?

He still felt Marianne’s kiss on his lips, burning like ice.  To-morrow,—­in a few hours,—­his first thought, his only thought would be to find that woman again, to experience that voluptuous impression, that dream that had penetrated his heart.  A danger, Lissac had said.  The feline eyes of Marianne had a dangerous ardor; but it was their charm, their strength and their adorable seductiveness, that filtered like a flame through her long, fair lashes.

He closed his eyes to picture Mademoiselle Kayser, to inhale the atmosphere, to enjoy something of the perfume surrounding her.

A danger!

Guy was perhaps right.  The best love is that which is never gathered, which remains immature, like a blossom in spring that never becomes a fruit.  Lord Lindsay’s despatch arrived seasonably.  It was a chance or a warning.

In any case, what would Rosas risk by passing a few days in London, and losing the burning of that kiss?  The sea-breezes would perhaps efface it.

“I am certainly feverish,” the duke thought.  “It was assuredly necessary to speak to Lissac.  It was also necessary to speak to her,” he added, in a dissatisfied, anxious, almost angry tone.

A danger!

Lissac had acted imprudently in uttering that word, which addressed to such a man as Rosas, had something alluring about it.  What irritated the duke was Guy’s reply, asserting that he had not been Marianne’s lover, but that Marianne had had other lovers.  Others?  What did Lissac know of this?  A species of jealous frenzy was blended with the feverish desire that Marianne’s kiss had injected into Rosas’s veins.  He would have liked to know the truth, to see Marianne again, to urge Guy to further confidences.  And, then, he felt that he would rather not have come, not have seen her again, not have gone to Sabine’s.

“Well, so be it!  Lord Lindsay is right, I will go.”

The following morning, Guy de Lissac found in his mail a brief note, sealed with the arms of the duke, with the motto:  Hasta la muerte.

Jose wrote to him as he was leaving Paris: 

“You are perhaps right.  I am a little intoxicated with Parisine.  I am going to London to visit a friend and if I ever recount my voyages there, it will only be to the serious-minded members of the Geographical Society.  There, at least, there is no ‘danger.’  With many thanks and until we meet again.

“Your friend,
“J.  DE R——­”