"Are you quite sure that the Sisters of Charity are women, my dear Marianne?--In a word, I swear that I asked only one thing, as I lay on that devilish, poisonous dunghill, and that was, to end the matter in the quickest possible way, that I might be no longer thought of, when--don't know why, or, rather, I know very well--in my fever, a certain voice reached me--whence?--from far away it commenced humming,--I should proclaim it yours among a thousand--a ridiculously absurd refrain that we heard together one evening at the Varietes, at an anniversary celebration. And this Boulevard chant recurred to me there in the heart of that desert, and transported me at a single bound to Paris, and I saw you again and these fair locks that I now look at, I saw them, too, casting upon your forehead the light shadow that they do now. I heard your laugh. I actually felt that I had you beside me in one of the stage-boxes at the theatre, listening to the now forgotten singer humming the refrain that had so highly amused you, Guy and myself--" It seemed to Marianne that the duke hesitated for a moment before pronouncing Guy's name. It was an almost imperceptible hesitation, rather felt than seen. Rosas quickly recovered: "On my word, you will see directly that the Boulevard lounger was hidden under your gloomy Castilian,--that refrain took such a hold on my poor wandering brain, such an entire possession, that I clung to it when the fever was at its height--I hummed it again and again, and on my honor, it banished the fever, perhaps by some homeopathic process, for at any other time, this deuced refrain would have aroused a fever in me." "Why?--Because it was I who formerly hummed it?" "Yes," said Rosas in a lowered tone. "Well! yes, just for that reason!--" He drew closer to her on the divan, and she said to him, laughingly: "How fortunate it is that Faure is singing yonder! He attracts everybody and so leaves us quite alone in this salon. It is very pleasant. Would you like to go and applaud Faure? It is some years since I heard him." "You are very malicious, Marianne," said the duke. "Let me steal this happy, fleeting hour. I am very happy." "You are happy?" "Profoundly happy, and simply because I am near you, listening to you and looking at you--" "My poor Job," she said, still laughing, "would you like me to sing you the refrain that we heard at the Varietes?" De Rosas did not reply, but simply looked at her. He felt as if he were surrounded with all the perfume of youth. On a console beside Marianne, stood a vase of inlaid enamel containing sprigs of white lilacs which as she leaned forward, surrounded her fair head as with an aureole of spring. Her locks were encircled with milk-white flowers and bright green leaves, transparent and clear, like the limpid green of water; and at times these sprigs were gently shaken, dropping a white bud on Marianne's hair, that looked like a drop of milk amid a heap of ruddy gold.