And Marsa also gazed after them, her ears caressed by the czardas of the musicians.  The big barge disappeared in the distance in a luminous haze; but the Tzigana could still vaguely perceive the little beings perched upon the shoulders of the men, and waving, in sign of farewell, pieces of white cloth which their mother had given them.

A happy torpor stole over Marsa; and, while the guests of the Baroness Dinati, the Japanese Yamada, the English heiresses, the embassy attaches, all these Parisian foreigners, led by Jacquemin, the director of the gayety, were organizing a ballroom on the deck, and asking the Tzigani for polkas of Fahrbach and waltzes of Strauss, the young girl heard the voice of Andras murmur low in her ear: 

“Ah! how I love you!  And do you love me, Marsa?”

“I am happy,” she answered, without moving, and half closing her eyes, “and, if it were necessary for me to give my life for you, I would give it gladly.”

In the stern of the boat, Michel Menko watched, without seeing them, perhaps, the fields, the houses of Pecq, the villas of Saint-Germain, the long terrace below heavy masses of trees, the great plain beside Paris with Mont Valerien rising in its midst, the two towers of the Trocadero, whose gilded dome sparkled in the sun, and the bluish-black cloud which hung over the city like a thick fog.

The boat advanced very slowly, as if Prince Andras had given the order to delay as much as possible the arrival at Maisons-Lafitte, where the whole fete would end for him, as Marsa was to land there.  Already, upon the horizon could be perceived the old mill, with its broad, slated roof.  The steeple of Sartrouville loomed up above the red roofs of the houses and the poplars which fringe the bank of the river.  A pale blue light, like a thin mist, enveloped the distant landscape.

“The dream is over,” murmured Marsa.

“A far more beautiful one will soon begin,” said Andras, “and that one will be the realization of what I have waited for all my life and never found—­love.”

Marsa turned to the Prince with a look full of passionate admiration and devotion, which told him how thoroughly his love was returned.

The quadrille had ended, and a waltz was beginning.  The little Japanese, with his eternal smile, like the bronze figures of his country, was dancing with a pre-raphaelite English girl.

“How well you dance,” she said.

“If we only had some favors,” replied the Japanese, showing his teeth in a grin, “I would lead the cotillon.”

The boat stopped at last at Maisons-Lafitte.  The great trees of the park formed a heavy mass, amid which the roof of the villa was just discernible.

“What a pity it is all over,” cried the Baroness, who was ruddy as a cherry with the exercise of dancing.  “Let us have another; but Maisons-Lafitte is too near.  We will go to Rouen the next time; or rather, I invite you all to a day fete in Paris, a game of polo, a lunch, a garden party, whatever you like.  I will arrange the programme with Yamada and Jacquemin.”