He advanced softly, and his heart quickened its throbbing when he saw that he was right.

Mlle. Blanche de Courtornieu was seated on a bench beside an old lady, and was engaged in reading a letter in a low voice.

She must have been greatly preoccupied, since she had not heard Martial’s footsteps approaching.

He was only ten paces from her, so near that he could distinguish the shadow of her long eyelashes.  He paused, holding his breath, in a delicious ecstasy.

“Ah! how beautiful she is!” he thought.  Beautiful? no.  But pretty, yes; as pretty as heart could desire, with her great velvety blue eyes and her pouting lips.  She was a blonde, but one of those dazzling and radiant blondes found only in the countries of the sun; and from her hair, drawn high upon the top of her head, escaped a profusion of ravishing, glittering ringlets, which seemed almost to sparkle in the play of the light breeze.

One might, perhaps, have wished her a trifle larger.  But she had the winning charm of all delicate and mignonnes women; and her figure was of exquisite roundness, and her dimpled hands were those of an infant.

Alas! these attractive exteriors are often deceitful, as much and even more so, than the appearances of a man like the Marquis de Courtornieu.

The apparently innocent and artless young girl possessed the parched, hollow soul of an experienced woman of the world, or of an old courtier.  She had been so petted at the convent, in the capacity of only daughter of a grand seigneur and millionnaire; she had been surrounded by so much adulation, that all her good qualities had been blighted in the bud by the poisonous breath of flattery.

She was only nineteen; and still it was impossible for any person to have been more susceptible to the charms of wealth and of satisfied ambition.  She dreamed of a position at court as a school-girl dreams of a lover.

If she had deigned to notice Martial—­for she had remarked him—­it was only because her father had told her that this young man would lift his wife to the highest sphere of power.  Thereupon she had uttered a “very well, we will see!” that would have changed an enamoured suitor’s love into disgust.

Martial advanced a few steps, and Mlle. Blanche, on seeing him, sprang up with a pretty affectation of intense timidity.

Bowing low before her, he said, gently, and with profound deference: 

“Monsieur de Courtornieu, Mademoiselle, was so kind as to tell me where I might have the honor of finding you.  I had not courage to brave those formidable discussions inside; but——­”

He pointed to the letter the young girl held in her hand, and added: 

“But I fear that I am de trap.”

“Oh! not in the least, Monsieur le Marquis, although this letter which I have just been reading has, I confess, interested me deeply.  It was written by a poor child in whom I have taken a great interest—­whom I have sent for sometimes when I was lonely—­Marie-Anne Lacheneur.”