How I should have replied to this masonic sign, God knows; but the manager fortunately entered, to assure us that the audience had kindly consented not to pull down the house, but to listen to a five act tragedy instead, in which he had to perform the principal character.  “So, then, don’t wait supper, Amelie; but take care of Monsieur Meerberger till my return.”

Thus, once more were we left to our souvenirs, in which, whenever hard pushed myself, I regularly carried the war into the enemy’s camp, by allusions to incidents, which I need not observe had never occurred.  After a thousand stories of our early loves, mingled with an occasional sigh over their fleeting character—­now indulging a soft retrospect of the once happy past—­now moralising on the future—­Amelie and I chatted away the hours till the conclusion of the tragedy.

By this time, the hour was approaching for my departure; so, after a very tender leave-taking with my new friend and my old love, I left the theatre, and walked slowly along to the river.

“So much for early associations,” thought I; “and how much better pleased are we ever to paint the past according to our own fancy, than to remember it as it really was.  Hence all the insufferable cant about happy infancy, and ‘the glorious schoolboy days,’ which have generally no more foundation in fact than have the ‘Chateaux en Espagne’ we build up for the future.  I wager that the real Amant d’enfance, when he arrives, is not half so great a friend with the fair Amelie as his unworthy shadow.  At the same time, I had just as soon that Lady Jane should have no ‘premiers amours’ to look back upon, except such as I have performed a character in.”

The plash of oars near me broke up my reflections, and the next moment found me skimming the rapid Rhine, as I thought for the last time.  What will they say in Strasbourg to-morrow?  How will they account for the mysterious disappearance of Monsieur Meerberger?  Poor Amelie Grandet!  For so completely had the late incidents engrossed my attention, that I had for the moment lost sight of the most singular event of all—­how I came to be mistaken for the illustrious composer.

CHAPTER XLIX.

A surprise.

It was late upon the following day ere I awoke from the long deep sleep that closed my labours in Strasbourg.  In the confusion of my waking thoughts, I imagined myself still before a crowded and enthusiastic audience—­the glare of the foot-lights—­the crash of the orchestra—­the shouts of “l’Auteur,” “l’Auteur,” were all before me, and so completely possessed me, that, as the waiter entered with hot water, I could not resist the impulse to pull off my night-cap with one hand, and press the other to my heart in the usual theatrical style of acknowledgments for a most flattering reception.  The startled look of the poor fellow as he neared the door to escape, roused me from my hallucination, and awakened me to the conviction that the suspicion of lunacy might be a still heavier infliction than the personation of Monsieur Meerberger.