"For a reason which I must keep secret, I wish that no one should know that I come from Khios, and consequently that I travelled from Toulon to Paris with you. I am a personage of so little importance that my name will not have been noticed on our journey. I shall stop at the next relay, make a long round to reach Fontainebleau, where I shall remain several days, and will thus arrive in Paris some time after you. All that I ask of your friendship is that you will receive favourably the request of one of my friends who will ask permission to present me to you. I should regret it keenly were I obliged to suspend an intercourse so delightful to me." M. de Fersen, with his usual tact, made no objection, and promised all that I asked. At the next relay, I informed Madame de Fersen that I was unfortunately obliged to take my leave of her, and delegated to the prince, who was present, the task of explaining to her why I was deprived of the pleasure of continuing the journey with her. She gave me her hand, which I kissed. Then I tenderly embraced Irene, throwing a sad farewell glance at her mother. Fresh horses were put to the carriages of the prince, they started, and I remained alone. My heart was broken. Little by little the consciousness of having acted nobly towards Madame de Fersen soothed my mind. I reflected that I should thus learn without in any way endangering her reputation whether Madame de Fersen felt for me a true friendship, perhaps even a more tender sentiment, or whether I owed to isolation, to idleness, and to the absence of all comparison, the interest which she had shown me. If she loved me, the constraint, the necessity of no longer seeing me, would be irksome to her, would perhaps be painful, and this sorrow, this regret, would assuredly betray itself. If, on the other hand, I had only been an agreeable acquaintance who had helped to while away the long hours of the journey, I should, without doubt, be sacrificed to the first more entertaining conversation, or the slightest worldly consideration. I would never willingly expose myself to be superseded, and I thus avoided it. I would doubtless suffer much, should I find that Madame de Fersen's sentiments for me were so weak that they were easily effaced, but in acting otherwise I would have had the same sorrow and mortification besides. I remained eight days at Fontainebleau and then left for Paris. CHAPTER XVI A MINISTER IN LOVE I reëntered Paris, from which I had been absent eighteen months, with a certain heartache. I had a faint hope, or rather some dread, of meeting Hélène or Marguerite.