And then I made pale little Ange refresh herself before returning to the side of her petulant old parent, when it was her sister’s turn to come down and be comforted with the assurance that the attack would do her father all the good in the world, and bring him out again in the course of a few days with a more brilliant complexion than before. They stayed with me as short a time as they could, and I did not press them to remain longer. I had made a great resolution to speak to the Baron about Arthur Thrale that very night. Such an opportunity as now presented itself might never occur again, and I was determined not to lose it. So, after the girls had left me, I sat in the _salle_ awaiting his arrival. About eight o’clock he came. He looked rather startled as he perceived that, except for myself, the room was empty, but I soon told him the reason. ‘Mr. Lovett is not well to-day, monsieur, and the girls are nursing him,’ I said in my faltering French—I could speak the language better with any one than with the Baron—‘but I have little doubt he will be downstairs again to-morrow.’ ‘In that case, mademoiselle,’ he answered, ‘I suppose I had better take my leave.’ I can see him now as he uttered those words with a slight tone of regret in his voice. I was sitting in the broad windowsill, which was framed in a clustering wreath of vine and fig leaves, and he was standing leaning against the wall, and looking down upon me with those unfathomable dark eyes of his, and his broad-brimmed soft felt _sombrero_ in his hand. ‘Will you not rest yourself for a few minutes before you start again, monsieur?’ I said politely, waving my hand towards a chair. ‘If I thought—if I believed,’ he stammered—‘that is, if I shall not be infringing the rules of etiquette, I shall be only too much pleased to exchange a few words with mademoiselle.’ ‘It is according to your own pleasure,’ I answered. ‘In our country, the rules are not so strict with regard to ladies and gentlemen conversing together as they are in yours. We have much greater freedom in England than you have here.’ ‘And much happier marriages in consequence,’ he said, as he seated himself. ‘Yes, I have heard as much, and there is scarcely a Frenchman who does not deplore the formalities of society that require him to marry a wife to whose mind he is a stranger.’ ‘Yet I suppose none of you are found brave enough to break through so formidable a barrier as custom,’ I replied, curious to find out, on Tessie’s account, if my companion were already _fiancé_ or not. ‘You yourself, monsieur, have doubtless been compelled to follow the example of those who have gone before you.’ ‘Ah! mademoiselle! I fear you are laughing at me. You forget the terrible reverse which my fortune has experienced. What father would promise the hand of his child to a beggar? It is true that I was _fiancé_ to my cousin, Mademoiselle Blanche de Beaupré, before I lost my money, when our betrothal was at once cancelled.’