After all stratagems have failed, it generally occurs to people to ask a direct question. But this in the present case was impossible. Hermance was never seen except in very public places--often in crowds--and to exchange twenty consecutive words with her, was considered a most fortunate feat. Notwithstanding, too, her strange, wild way of gaining her livelihood, there was a certain dignity in her manner which sufficed to cool the too curious. As for the directors of the theatres, they exhibited a most appropriate amount of madness on her account; and I believe that at several of the theatres, Hermance might have commanded her own terms. But only one of these miserable men succeeded in making a tangible proposal, and he was treated with most glorious contempt. There was, indeed, something doubly dramatic in the _Bouquetière's_ disdain of the drama. She who _lived_ a romance could never descend to act one. She would rather be Rosalind than Rachel. She refused the part of Cerito, and chose to be an Alma on her own account. It may be supposed that where there was so much mystery, imagination would not be idle. To have believed all the conflicting stories about Hermance, would be to come to the conclusion that she was the stolen child of noble parents, brought up by an _ouvrier_: but that somehow her father was a tailor of dissolute habits, who lived a contented life of continual drunkenness, on the profits of his daughter's industry;--that her mother was a deceased duchess--but, on the other hand, was alive, and carried on the flourishing business of a _blanchisseuse_. As for the private life of the young lady herself, it was reflected in such a magic mirror of such contradictory impossibilities, in the delicate discussions held upon the subject, that one had no choice but to disbelieve every thing. One day a new impulse was given to this gossip by the appearance of the _Bouquetière_ in a startling hat of some expensive straw, and of a make bordering on the ostentatious. It could not be doubted that the profits of her light labors were sufficient to enable her to multiply such finery to almost any extent, had she chosen; but in Paris the adoption of a bonnet or a hat, in contradistinction to the little cap of the _grisette_, is considered an assumption of a superior grade, and unless warranted by the "position" of the wearer, is resented as an impertinence. In Paris, indeed, there are only two classes of women--those with bonnets, and those without; and these stand in the same relation to one another, as the two great classes into which the world may be divided--the powers that be, and the powers that want to be. Under these circumstances, it may be supposed that the surmises were many and marvelous. The little _Bouquetière_ was becoming proud--becoming a lady;--but how? why? and above all--where? Curiosity was never more rampant, and scandal never more inventive.