All this time the poet was vaguely conscious of the admiring gaze that was bent upon him. He experienced something of the same sensation that one has in the fields in the early evening, when the moon suddenly rises behind you and compels you to turn toward its silent presence. The eyes of this woman magnetized him in the same way. The words she caught in regard to leaving France struck a chill to her heart. A funereal gloom settled over the room. Additional dismay overwhelmed her as D’Argenton wound up with a vigorous tirade against French women,—their lightness and coquetry, the insincerity of their smiles, and the venality of their love. The poet no longer conversed; he declaimed, leaning against the chimney, and careless who heard either his voice or his words. Poor Ida, intensely absorbed as she was in him, could not realize that he was indifferent, and fancied that his invectives were addressed to herself. “He knows who I am,” she said, and bowed her head in shame. Moronval said aloud, “What a genius!” and in a lower voice to himself, “What a boaster!” But Ida needed nothing more; her heart was gone. Had Dr. Hirsch, who was always so interested in pathological singularities, been then at leisure, he might have made a curious study of this case of instantaneous combustion. An hour before, Madame Moronval had dispatched Jack to bed, with two or three of the younger children; the others were gaping in silent wretchedness, stupefied by all they saw and heard. The Chinese lanterns swung in the wind each side of the garden-gate; the lane was unlighted, and not even a policeman enlivened its muddy sidewalk; but the disputative little group that left the Moronval Academy cared little for the gloom, the cold, or the dampness. When they reached the avenue they found that the hour for the omnibus had passed. They accepted this as they did the other disagreeables of life—in the same brave spirit. Art is a great magician. It creates a sunshine from which its devotees, as well as the poor and the ugly, the sick and the sorry, can each borrow a little, and with it gain a grace to suffer, and a calm serenity that may well be envied. CHAPTER V. A DINNER WITH IDA. The next day the Moronvals received from Madame de Barancy an invitation for the following Monday; at the bottom of the note was a postscript, expressing the pleasure she should have in receiving also M. d’Argenton. “I shall not go,” said the poet, dryly, when Moronval handed him the coquettish perfumed note. Then the principal grew very angry, as he saw his plans frustrated. “Why would not D’Argenton accept the invitation?” “Because,” was the answer, “I never visit such women.”