“Ah! he is young?”

“Certainly, mademoiselle . . . though young, he is one of the most distinguished men in Spain.”

I scanned the house meanwhile through my opera-glass, and seemed to lend an inattentive ear to the secretary; but, between ourselves, I was wretched at having burnt his letter.  In what terms would a man like that express his love?  For he does love me.  To be loved, adored in secret; to know that in this house, where all the great men of Paris were collected, there was one entirely devoted to me, unknown to everybody!  Ah!  Renee, now I understand the life of Paris, its balls, and its gaieties.  It all flashed on me in the true light.  When we love, we must have society, were it only to sacrifice it to our love.  I felt a different creature—­and such a happy one!  My vanity, pride, self-love,—­all were flattered.  Heaven knows what glances I cast upon the audience!

“Little rogue!” the Duchess whispered in my ear with a smile.

Yes, Renee, my wily mother had deciphered the hidden joy in my bearing, and I could only haul down my flag before such feminine strategy.  Those two words taught me more of worldly wisdom than I have been able to pick up in a year—­for we are in March now.  Alas! no more Italian opera in another month.  How will life be possible without that heavenly music, when one’s heart is full of love?

When I got home, my dear, with determination worthy of a Chaulieu, I opened my window to watch a shower of rain.  Oh! if men knew the magic spell that a heroic action throws over us, they would indeed rise to greatness! a poltroon would turn hero!  What I had learned about my Spaniard drove me into a very fever.  I felt certain that he was there, ready to aim another letter at me.

I was right, and this time I burnt nothing.  Here, then, is the first love-letter I have received, madame logician:  each to her kind:—­

“Louise, it is not for your peerless beauty I love you, nor for your gifted mind, your noble feeling, the wondrous charm of all you say and do, nor yet for your pride, your queenly scorn of baser mortals—­a pride blent in you with charity, for what angel could be more tender?—­Louise, I love you because, for the sake of a poor exile, you have unbent this lofty majesty, because by a gesture, a glance, you have brought consolation to a man so far beneath you that the utmost he could hope for was your pity, the pity of a generous heart.  You are the one woman whose eyes have shone with a tenderer light when bent on me.

“And because you let fall this glance—­a mere grain of dust, yet a grace surpassing any bestowed on me when I stood at the summit of a subject’s ambition—­I long to tell you, Louise, how dear you are to me, and that my love is for yourself alone, without a thought beyond, a love that far more than fulfils the conditions laid down by you for an ideal passion.

“Know, then, idol of my highest