Gabrie's note-book was almost filled with these little figures. Regina turned the leaves without scruple, and in the later pages she found characters of professors, students, that of Claretta (a flirt, hysterical, corrupt), whom Gabrie had met in Regina's drawing-room a few days before. She was terrible, this future novelist; not a looking-glass, but a Röntgen apparatus! Regina, impelled by curiosity, continued to turn the leaves and to read, standing by the little table. "A young wife, short-sighted, dark, all eyes and mouth, clever, rather original, a little enigmatical. Of noble but fallen family; imagines she doesn't value her blue blood, and, perhaps, does not think about it; but her blood is blue, and she feels it, and would like to be aristocratic. She is fond of luxury and of rich people. She is married to a poor man, but has succeeded in making him _largely increase his income_." "Good gracious! This is myself!" thought Regina, amused but slightly offended. "She doesn't treat me very kindly, this girl! What does she mean by that last phrase?" Suddenly she remembered that Gabrie had once told her certain stories she has got from her fellow-students. "But it's a fire of calumny, that college of yours!" Regina had protested, and Gabrie had answered-- "A fire? It's a furnace!" She read on-- "An authoress: tall, thin, yellow, with little, milky eyes, small mouth, black teeth, yellow hair, hooked nose. Moves pity by the mere sight of her. When she's with men she also tries to flirt." "That's Arduina, slain in three lines," thought Regina. Then she found Massimo, Marianna--("short, with malicious olive face, little black eyes, pretends always to speak the truth, but a sculptor would entitle her, 'Statuette in bronze representing Malignant Folly'"), the blind lady, other persons who frequented the Princess's receptions, to which Regina had taken Gabrie several times. At last-- "A foreigner: very rich, tall, and stout; very black hair (dyed), lips too thick, pale, almost livid. Eyes small and sharp; mysterious as those of a wicked cat. Never laughs. Impossible to guess her age. Deaf. Always talking of an uncle who knew Georges Sand. Type of the sensual woman. Has a young lover----" And immediately after-- "Government clerk: private secretary to an old Princess. Young. Fair. Very handsome. Tall, athletic; long, fascinating eyes; good mouth; fresh complexion. Lively. Good-hearted. Deeply in love with his young wife. Nevertheless, _he is the Princess's lover_." CHAPTER II Regina had once dreamed of an eclipse of the sun. Reading Gabrie's page, she remembered that dream, because there was reproduced in her the same feeling of fearful darkness, of portentous silence and terrible expectation.