"Won't you let me off? I am so happy in my solitude." "Oh! no, my friend. You know that I count on you more than all the rest." His heart gave a great thump. "Thank you," he said; "I will come." CHAPTER VI. QUESTIONINGS Good day, M. Mariolle." Mariolle noticed that it was no longer the "dear friend" of Auteuil, and the clasp of the hand was a hurried one, the hasty pressure of a busy woman wholly engrossed in her social functions. As he entered the salon Mme. de Burne was advancing to speak to the beautiful Mme. le Prieur, whose sculpturesque form, and the audacious way that she had of dressing to display it, had caused her to be nicknamed, somewhat ironically, "The Goddess." She was the wife of a member of the Institute, of the section of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. "Ah, Mariolle!" exclaimed Lamarthe, "where do you come from? We thought that you were dead." "I have been making a trip through Finistère." He was going on to relate his impressions when the novelist interrupted him: "Are you acquainted with the Baronne de Frémines?" "Only by sight; but I have heard a good deal of her. They say that she is queer." "The very queen of crazy women, but with an exquisite perfume of modernness. Come and let me present you to her." Taking him by the arm he led him toward a young woman who was always compared to a doll, a pale and charming little blond doll, invented and created by the devil himself for the damnation of those larger children who wear beards on their faces. She had long, narrow eyes, slightly turned up toward the temples, apparently like the eyes of the Chinese; their soft blue glances stole out between lids that were seldom opened to their full extent, heavy, slowly-moving lids, designed to veil and hide this creature's mysterious nature. Her hair, very light in color, shone with silky, silvery reflections, and her delicate mouth, with its thin lips, seemed to have been cut by the light hand of a sculptor from the design of a miniature-painter. The voice that issued from it had bell-like intonations, and the audacity of her ideas, of a biting quality that was peculiar to herself, smacking of wickedness and drollery, their destructive charm, their cold, corrupting seductiveness, all the complicated nature of this full-grown, mentally diseased child acted upon those who were brought in contact with her in such a way as to produce in them violent passions and disturbances.