"And I: 'Alas! monsieur, Fate has ordained us to a solitude à deux.' "I did not mention your name, monsieur, for in mentioning your name I would have mentioned a person who had disgraced me." "Very well," said I. "I will disgrace you no longer. I will leave Paris to-morrow, and go to Nice." This determination I carried out next day. Now, under the tragic cloak of the story, under all these evasions of mine and this pursuit of Von Lichtenberg, there lay a lovely comedy, of which I, one of the chief actors, was utterly ignorant of the motive and the extraordinary dénouement. But this, if you have not guessed it, you will see presently. I went to Nice. I had never been South before; I had never seen the white, white roads, the black shadows, the green olives, the leaping palms; I had never seen the oranges glowing like dim golden lamps amidst the glossy green leaves; and it seemed to me that I had never seen the blue of sky or the blue of sea before I entered that Paradise. It is all changed now. The Avenue de la Gare from a road in heaven has become a street in a town; vulgarity and wealth have done their work; and to-day you may buy a diamond necklace of M. Marx, where, in 1869, under a plane-tree, sat the old woman who sold peeled oranges for a sou a dozen. I spent the winter at Nice, finding plenty of amusement and friends, and cutting myself off completely from Paris, communicating only with my guardian and with Franzius and his wife, who were living at the Pavilion. The 4th of April was the date for the production of his opera, "Undine." It was based on De la Motte Fouquet's lovely tale; and its success, as far as I could learn from Carvalho, was assured, for one can say of certain artistic productions, just as one can say of sunlight or pure gold: "This is assured. Let the tastes or the fashions alter, this will always be reckoned at its full value, a treasure indestructible." I had fixed to return to Paris on the 30th of March, but I came back sooner; for on the 15th of March, driving on the Promenade des Anglais, I passed a carriage in which were seated the Comte de Coigny and the Baron Carl von Lichtenberg. CHAPTER XXXIII THE OVERTURE TO "UNDINE" It was the morning of the day of "Undine's" production. I had ridden over to the Pavilion from Paris to breakfast with Franzius and Eloise. The rehearsal had almost wrecked Franzius, but he was all right now; the ship was built; only the launching remained. As to Eloise, in six months she had altered subtly yet marvellously. I had last seen her a girl in her bridal dress; she was now a woman, for in six months she had aged years, without gaining a wrinkle or losing a trace of the beauty of youth. Love had ripened her; her every movement was marked by that self-contained grace which comes from maturity of mind; the wild beauty of spring had vanished, giving place to the full beauty of summer--the grace of Demeter gazing upon the fields of immortal wheat.