So thinking, she turned to enter again the glare of light to find Madame Dulac, or Madame Blanc, who had accompanied her, to tell them. But another hand pushed aside the curtain of silk and the drooping fronds of gigantic fern. Looking up she saw a tall, young man, wearing a dark blue uniform, who bowed with grace, and stood aside that she might pass if she chose. He showed no recognition, and there was the pause of an instant. She could feel the color leave her face. Then, with an effort, she raised her eyes, and tried to speak carelessly, but the voice was little more than a whisper, in which she said: "You!" His face brightened and grew warm. The tone itself told more than she knew; a man would be stupid who could not read it, and this one, though youthful, did not look stupid. "Madame Unknown," he murmured, in the voice she had not been able to forget, "I am not so lost here as at Fontainbleau. May I ask some one to present me to your notice?" At that she smiled, and the smile was contagious. "You may not," she replied frankly, recovering herself, and assuming a tone of lightness to conquer the fluttering in her throat. "The list of names I have had to remember this evening is most formidable, another one would make the last feather here," and she tapped her forehead significantly. "I was just about to flee from it all when--" She hesitated and looked about her in an uncertain way. He at once placed a chair for her. She allowed her hand to rest on the back of it as if undecided. "You will not be so unkind?" he said; and his words held a plea. She answered it by seating herself. "Well?" At the interrogation he smiled. "Will you not allow me, Madame, to introduce myself?" "But, Monsieur Incognito, consider; I have remembered you best because you have not done so; it was a novelty. But all those people whose names were spoken to me this evening--pouf!" and she blew a feathery spray of fern from her palms, "they have all drifted into oblivion like that. Do you wish, then, to be presented and--to follow them?" "I refuse to follow them there--from you." His tones were so low, so even, so ardent, that she looked startled and drew her breath quickly. "You are bold, Monsieur," and though she strove to speak haughtily she was too much of a girl to be severe when her eyes met his. "Why not?" he asked, growing bolder as she grew more timid. "You grant me one moment out of your life; then you mean to close the gates against me--if you can. In that brief time I must condense all that another man should take months to say to you. I have been speaking to you daily, however, for six weeks and--" "Monsieur! Six weeks?" "Every day," he assented, smiling down at her. "Of course you did not hear me. I was very confidential about it. I even tried to stop it entirely when I was allowed to believe that Mademoiselle was Madame." "But it is quite true--she is Madame."