"You apparently had some very knotty subjects to discuss to induce you to seek this profound solitude?--you were talking about theology, I suppose, and the twofold nature of the soul?" "Oh! _Mon Dieu_, no; our minds were engrossed by subjects much less sublime; we were eating cake and talking fashions--that's all." "I don't believe a word of it; you looked to me as if you were buried deep in some sentimental discussion;--but, to divert your minds from your vaporish conversation, I think it would be a good idea for you to take a turn on horseback with me.--I have a new mare I want to try.--You shall ride her too, Théodore, and we'll see what we can make of her." We went out together, I on his arm and Rosette on mine; the expressions on our faces were curiously different.--Alcibiades was pensive, I was altogether content, and Rosette excessively annoyed. Alcibiades had arrived most opportunely for me, most inopportunely for Rosette, who thus lost, or thought that she lost, all the fruit of her shrewd attacks and her ingenious tactics.--She had it all to do over again;--a quarter of an hour later, deuce take me if I know what might have been the conclusion of that incident--I can imagine no possible outcome.--Perhaps it would have been better that Alcibiades should not intervene just at the decisive moment like a _deux ex machina_;--then the thing would have had to come to a climax in one way or another.--Two or three times during that scene I was on the point of telling Rosette who I was; but the fear of being taken for an adventuress and of having my secret revealed retained upon my lips the words that were already to take flight. Such a condition of things could not last.--My departure was the only method of cutting short that issue-less intrigue; and so, at dinner, I formally announced that I must take my leave the very next day.--Rosette, who was sitting beside me, almost fainted at the news, and dropped her glass. A sudden pallor overspread her lovely face; she bestowed upon me a grieved, reproachful glance which made my emotion and trouble almost as great as her own.