Many were the envious glances that we encountered, and presently I became aware that one individual was following us about: a horrid, glossy creature, in a dress suit, with a top-hat that was much too shiny, and a hugh waxed moustache that he kept twirling invidiously: an undersized, dark, Hebraic-featured man, screamingly “rasta’.” Whithersoever we turned, he hovered annoyingly near to us, and ogled P’tit-Bleu under my very beard. This was bad enough; but—do sorrows ever come as single spies?—conceive my emotions, if you please, when, by-and-by, suspicion hardened into certitude that P’tit-Bleu was not merely getting a vainglorious gratification from his attentions, but that she was positively playing up to them, encouraging him to persevere! She chattered—to me, indeed, but at him—with a vivacity there was no misconstruing; laughed noisily, fluttered her fan, flirted her veil, donned and doffed her loup, and, I daresay, when my back was turned, exchanged actual eye-shots with the brute.... In due time quadrilles were organised, and P’tit-Bleu led a set. The glossy interloper was one of the admiring circle that surrounded her. Ugh! his complacent, insinuating smile, the conquering air with which he twirled his moustachios. And P’tit-Bleu.... When, at the finish, she sprang up, after her grand écart, what do you suppose she did?... The brazen little minx, instead of rejoining me, slipped her arm through his, and went tripping off with him to the supper-room. Oh, the night I passed, the night of anguish! The visions that tortured me, as I tramped my floor! The delirious revenges that I plotted, and gloated over in anticipation! She had left me—the mockery of it!—she had left me her loup, her little black velvet loup, with its empty eye-holes, and its horribly reminiscent smell. Everything P’tit-Bleu owned was scented with peau-d’.spagne. I wreaked my fury upon that loup, I promise you. I smote it with my palm, I ground it under my heel, I tore it limb from limb, I called it all manner of abusive names. Early in the morning I was at P’tit-Bleu’s house; but the concierge grunted, “Pas rentrée.” Oh, the coals thereof are coals of fire. I returned to her house a dozen times that day, and at length, towards nightfall, found her in. We had a stormy session, but, of course, the last word of it was hers: still, for all slips, she was one of Eve’s family. Of course she justified herself, and put me in the wrong. I went away, vowing I would never, never, never see her again. “Va! Ça m’est bien égal,” she capped the climax by calling after me. Oh, youth! Oh, storm and stress! And to think that one lives to laugh at its memory. For the rest of that season, P’tit-Bleu and I remained at daggers drawn. In June I left town for the summer; and then one thing and another happened, and kept me away till after Christmas. When I got back, amongst the many pieces of news that I found waiting for me, there was one that affected P’tit-Bleu.