At such times our senses are at once super-acute and paralyzed,--super-acute to the slightest detail that corresponds to the emotion that occupies us, paralyzed for everything else. Thinking afterward of those minutes so decisive in his life, Hautefeuille could never remember what road he had taken from the hotel to the villa, nor what acquaintances he had met on the way. He was not roused from this lucid dream until he entered the first and larger of the two parlors, empty at this moment. A perfume floated there, mingled with the scent of flowers, the favorite perfume of Madame de Carlsberg,--a composition of gray amber, Chypre, and Russian cologne. He had scarcely time to breathe in that odor which brought Ely's image so vividly before him when a second door opened, voices came to him, but he distinguished only one, which, like the perfume, went to his heart. A few steps further and he was before Madame de Carlsberg herself, who was talking with Madame Brion, the Marquise Bonnacorsi, and the pretty Vicomtesse de Chésy. Further on, by the window near the conservatory, Flossie Marsh stood talking with a tall, blond young man, badly dressed, by no means handsome, yet revealing under his dishevelled hair the bright face of a savant, the frank smile, the clear meditative eyes. It was Marcel Verdier, whom the young girl had boldly forewarned by a note, in the American manner, and who, kept from lunching by the Archduke, had escaped for ten minutes from the laboratory in order to get to her. Neither was the Baroness seated. She was pacing the floor in an effort to disguise the nervousness which was brought to its extreme by the arrival of him she awaited. But how could he have suspected this? How could he have divined from her classic, tailor-made walking dress of blue serge that she had not been able that morning to remain indoors? She had been within sight of his hotel, as he had so often been near the Villa Helmholtz, to see the house and to return with beating heart. And how could he have read the interest in the tender, blue eyes of Madame de Bonnacorsi, or in the soft brown eyes of Madame Brion a solicitude which to a lover capable of observing would have given reason for hope? Hautefeuille saw distinctly but one thing,--the uneasiness which appeared in Madame de Carlsberg's eyes and which he at once interpreted as a sign of measureless reproach. That was almost enough to deprive him of the force to answer in the commonplace phrases of politeness; he took a seat by the Marquise at the invitation of the romantic Italian, who was moved to pity by his visible emotion.