What René had so much feared did not take place. Madame Moraines did not make the slightest allusion either to the Opera or to their meeting at the corner of the street. For some time she continued her work, having quite naturally brought the conversation round from Madame Komof's enthusiasm to the poet's plans for the future. She, who could not have distinguished Béranger from Victor Hugo, or Voltaire from Lamartine, spoke like one entirely devoted to literature. She had met Théophile Gautier two or three times under the Empire, and though she had scarcely looked at him on account of his complete lack of British elegance, this did not prevent her from giving the enthusiastic René a minute description of the great writer. He had interested her to such a degree--she thought she must still have some of his letters. 'I must find them for you,' she said. Then, reminded by this lie, she added, 'I am sorry to have put you to all this inconvenience for your autograph, but my friend leaves for Russia to-morrow.' 'What shall I write?' asked René. 'Whatever you please,' she said, rising to get the book, and placing it on her ivy-mantled desk. She got everything ready for him to make his task easier--opened the ink-pot with its silver top and put a fresh pen in the ivory and gold penholder; in doing this she contrived to touch René lightly in passing to and fro, enveloping him with her sweet perfume and causing his hand to tremble as he copied on the fly-sheet of the book the two verses which kind Madame Ethorel had called a sonnet: The phantom of a day long dead Appeared, with hand stretched out to show A fair white rose whose bloom was fled, And in my ear it whispered low, 'Where is thy heart of long ago? Where is that hope thy fond heart chose So like this rose in days of yore? Dear was the hope and dear the rose: How sweet their perfume heretofore When once they bloomed! They bloom no more. When he had finished writing Madame Moraines took the book from his hands, and, standing behind him, recited the verses in a low, almost inaudible, voice, as if to herself. She added no word of praise or criticism, but, after having read out the lines with a sigh, remained standing there as though their music lent an infinitely tender tone to her reverie. René gazed at her almost wild with emotion. How could he have resisted such sweet and supreme flattery as that which she had just employed to captivate him, appealing, as it did, both to his vanity as an artist and to his highest conceptions of beauty? And, indeed, she had managed to fall into a splendid _pose_ whilst reading. She knew how charming she looked with half-averted face and eyes cast down. But suddenly she turned these glorious eyes, now eloquent with the feelings inspired by his lines, full upon the poet, and almost asked pardon for her temporary abstraction.